The Potter Twins and the Scorcer's Stone
by NessBellaLondon22
Summary: Bella and Harry have spent there lives growing up with the Dursley's. Now they are of to Hogwarts. Intrested? Then read! All main charcters from Twilight and Harry Potter will be included.
1. The Twins that Lived

All rights to J.K Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. I own nothing. This is all from Harry Potter and Twilight.

Chapter One

The Twins that Lived

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal. They were the last people you would expect to be involved in anything mysterious or strange, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a company called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck and a rather large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin, blonde, and had almost twice the usual amount of neck, which was very useful as she spent most of her time craning over garden fences, spying on neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son named Dudley and in their opinion there could be no finer child anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as un-Dursleyish as they could come. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys new that the Potters had a small son and daughter, too, but they had never even seen them. These children were another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with children like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive - no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something...

Yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.

Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open- mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.

He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.

"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard yes, their children, Harry and Bella." Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.

He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking... no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry or daughters named Bella. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure of his nephew or niece's names. He'd never even seen the children. It might have been Harvey. Or Beth. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her - if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in cloaks...

He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.

"Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground.

On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!" And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.

Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped for before, because he didn't approve of imagination.

As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.

"Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.

Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news: "And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin.

"Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"

"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early - it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight." Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair.

Shooting stars all over Britain. Owls flying by daylight. Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place. And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...

Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"

As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.

"No," she said sharply. "Why?"

"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."

"So." snapped Mrs. Dursley.

"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd." Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips.

Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their children - they'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't they?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.

"What are their names again? Howard, and um, Beth, isn't it?"

"Harry and Bella. Nasty, common names, if you ask me."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree." He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed.

While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there.

It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.

Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... if it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, he didn't think he could bear it.

The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on - he yawned and turned over - it couldn't affect them...

How very wrong he was.

Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive before. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots.

His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street.

For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known." He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter.

He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement.

Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.

"How did you know it was me." she asked.

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."

"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.

"All day. When you could have been celebrating. I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.

"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently.

"You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."

"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."

"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore."

"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you like a lemon drop?"

"A what?"

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"

"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name. All this 'You- Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unwrapping two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."

"I know you haven 't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."

"Only because you're too - well - noble to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying. About why he's disappeared. About what finally stopped him." It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day. She fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was eatting another lemon drop and did not answer.

"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead." Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.

"Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..." Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder.

"I know... I know..." he said heavily.

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's children, Harry and Bella. But - he couldn't. He couldn't kill the little babies. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill the Potter twins, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone."

Dumbledore nodded glumly.

"It's - it's true." faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill two babies? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did the children survive?"

"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch.

It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way."

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places."

"I've come to bring the children to there aunt and uncle. They're the only family they have left now."

"You can't mean the people who live _here_!" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. The Potters, come and live here?"

"It's the best place for them," said Dumbledore firmly. "They're aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to them when they are old enough to hear it. I've written them a letter."

"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter. These people will never understand them! They'll be famous – legends – I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Potter's day in the future - there will be books written about them – every child in our world will know their names."

"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn anyone's head. Famous before they can even walk and talk! Famous for something they won't even remember! Can you see how much better off they'll be, growing up away from all that until they are ready for it?"

"Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how are the children going to get here?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding the twins underneath it.

"Hagrid's bringing them."

"You think it – wise – to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"

"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.

"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to – what was that?" A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky – and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting ridding it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sit," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got them, sir."

"No problems, were there?"

"No, sir – house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. She's been asleep the whole way and he fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol." Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundles of blankets. Inside, just visible, were a baby boy and girl both fast asleep.

Under a tuft of jet-black hair over the boy's forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. And when the little girl shifted you could see a small little moon on the back of her wrist.

"Is that where -." whispered Professor McGonagall.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "They'll have those scars forever."

"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well - give them here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with." Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and Professor McGonagall took Bella. They turned toward the Dursleys' house.

"Could I - could I say good-bye to them, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his

great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, he did the same to Bella. Suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"

S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Harry and Bella off ter live with Muggles -"

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door.

They laid Harry and Bella gently on the doorstep. Dumbledore took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundles; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.

"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."

"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall – Professor Dumbledore, sir." Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundles of blankets on the step of number four.

"Good luck, Harry and Bella," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.


	2. How Did He Get Back There

**A/N: Wow! I can't believe in just a few hours I've already gotten 12 e-mails about my story! Thank you so much! More reviews, alerts, and favorites means more updates for you so if you like the story let me know! Now, back to the good stuff.**

Chapter Two

How Did He Get Back There

It had been almost ten years since the night that old Dumbledore had left young Bella and Harry on the front stoop of their Aunt and Uncle's house, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose and the street would be flooded with light, onto the gardens and into the Dursley house. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece showed that it really had been ten years.

Ten years ago, one would have seen pictures of a large rather pink baby that resembled a beach ball in a bonnet. That baby, of course, was no longer a baby but a boy named Dudley Dursley. The mantelpiece sure showed that. The pictures now were of a large blonde boy riding a bike, or playing on the computer, or even just hugging his mother. But that was that the entire mantelpiece showed. That was all that the house showed,

No Harry. No Bella. No Potters.

But they where there. There was no doubt. Only if you really knew the Dursleys', and on one did, would you know that under the stairs in the cupboard of number 4 Privet Drive, were two small Potter twins.

Harry was dead asleep in the makeshift bed that he and Bella shared. Bella was up early again trying to read a book in the dark. It's not like she wanted to stay in a dark and dusty cupboard. No. Who would chose that over light, and open air? Bella had a good reason for hiding in the cupboard. She was hiding from her Aunt.

Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the Potter twins' day.

"Up! Get up! Now!" Bella through her book under her pillow and shook Harry. Harry jerked with a start.

"She's up," Bella whispered as soft as she possibly could.

Harry, still groggy looked at his sister like she was crazy and rolled back over. He was just starting to fall back into his dream when–

"Up!" Aunt Petunia screeched in a pitch so high it made Bella jump. They heard her waking towards the kitchen and heard something slam down on the stove.

Bella flipped on the light and handed Harry his glasses. She crossed her arms and looked fairly annoyed. Harry looked dumbfounded.

"Oh," he said at last. "Her." Bella still didn't uncross her arms. "Oh, come on, Bells! I'm tired! She made me stay up last night and clean up Dudley's stupid mess from dinner. He's such a pig."

Bella finally uncrossed her arms and even cracked a smile at the thought of her cousin as a pig. She could just see it now. Dudley in the middle of a table on Christmas, with and apple in his mouth. Harry was imagining Dudley rolling around in mud.

"So what were you dreaming about?" Bella asked as they started to walk out of the cupboard. "You sure didn't want to wake up."

"Oh, that," Harry smiled. "It was a great dream, Bells on was flying on a motorcycle with this huge guy over London and–"

"Look who's finally up!" Harry and Bella looked up from their conversation to realize they had now entered the kitchen. "Harry, go make breakfast for Dudley! He wants bacon."

"Why can't Bella do it?" Harry complained.

"Because, I will not have Dudley eating burnt bacon on his birthday!" She turned to bell with a sneer on her face. "And _you_, set the table and try not to break anything."

As soon as she turned around Bella made a blah blah blah motion with her hand and stuck her tongue out. Of course Harry started laughing. Aunt Petunia was almost out of the room until she heard that. She turned around and glared at them.

"What's so funny?" she asked, her voice coated in false sweetness. She turned directly on Bella.

"Oh nothing." Bella said mimicking the aunt voice perfectly. Harry now had his back turned to them and was biting on his fingers to keep from laughing. With one last glare, their Aunt left.

Bella turned around to set the table and almost gasped. She almost couldn't see the table. It was covered by Dudley's presents! Wait presents?

Bella looked at Harry. Of course he hadn't remembered either. The presents, the getting up early, the extra snippy-ness of their Aunt's voice. It could only mean one thing. It was Dudley's Birthday.

Bella tucked a piece of red hair behind her head and tried to move the presents over just enough to fit the dishes in. After about ten minutes she succeeded. Harry had finished the bacon and was onto Aunt Petunia's morning omelet. It was strange to see such a skinny wrist holding a spatula and flipping things.

Maybe it had something to do with living in the cupboard but the potter twins had always been rather skinny. Harry was skinny and about four foot eleven with a mop of jet black hair and striking green eyes under his round glasses. His hair covered up a little lighting bolt on his forehead. Bella was also very skinny and about four foot nine with wavy red hair. She had dark, chocolate brown eyes like her father. Her scar, however, wasn't covered by hair. It was a small storm cloud on her wrist.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Bella was helping Harry put the bacon on plates.

"Comb your hair!" he barked. This was Uncle Vernon's idea of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than anyone else in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way – all over the place.

Bella and Harry were on to frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel –Bella liked to tell the girls at school that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.

Bella and Harry put the plates of eggs and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents.

His face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, his face going rather red.

Bella and Harry knew this all too well. They saw a huge Dudley tantrum coming on. Uncle Vernon had already begun wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.

Aunt Petunia obviously knew this was trouble, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you two more presents while we're out today. How's that, pumpkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like it was very hard work. "So then I'll have forty presents!" he said finally.

Harry almost laughed again but he knew to be quiet. However, Bella didn't.

"It's thirty nine, genius." Dudley glared and Aunt Petunia jumped in.

"Well look who's getting an A in math," she smirked before turning back to her son.

Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest plate. "All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!"

At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry, Bella, and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take them." She jerked her head in the direction of the twins.

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry and Bella suddenly felt excited. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, they were left behind with Mrs. Figg. Mrs. Figg was a crazy old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. Bella didn't mind as much but the idea of an adventure was just so appealing. Mrs. Figg's whole house smelled like cabbage and she made them look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia. She looked furiously at a nervous Harry and a smug Bella as though they had been planning this. They knew they should have felt sorry for Mrs. Figg and her broken leg, but it wasn't easy.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested. Bella shuttered at the thought.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates them." The Dursleys often talked about Bella and Harry like this, as though they weren't there – or like they were something disgusting that couldn't understand them, like a slug. Like they weren't human.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend –Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"You could just leave us here," Harry put in hopefully.

Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just tasted something sour.

"And come back and find the house in ruins." she snarled.

"We won't blow up the house," said Bella, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take them to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "...and leave them in the car..."

"That car's new! I will not let them sit in it alone..."

Dudley began crying. He wasn't really crying – it had been years since he'd really cried – but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, Aunt Petunia would give him anything he wanted.

"Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let them spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I... don't... want... them... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "The always m-m-mess up everything!" He shot Harry and Bella a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang – "Oh, Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically – and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley would hit them in the face. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Harry and Bella were sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in there life. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with them, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.

"I'm warning now you, boy," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "any funny business, anything at all – and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas. You and that bloody sister of yours."

"You know we're not going to do anything," said Harry, "Honestly..

But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.

The problem was, weird thing would often happen around the Potter twins. Every time that they would tell their aunt and uncle that they didn't do, they would just be shut up in a cupboard.

Once, Aunt Petunia had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut Harry's hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Bella had tried to comfort him with no success.

But when he had woken up the next morning, he found that his hair was the same as it had been before Aunt Petunia had cut it. Aunt Petunia had a tantrum and blamed Harry. He was shut in the cupboard for having his hair grow too fast. The only food he got was what Bella could sneak for him from the kitchen.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, the cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Bella, the bank, Harry, the economy, and Bella were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying and there was this huge hairy man in a trench–"

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" Dudley and Piers sniggered.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry and Bella what they wanted before the Dursleys could walk away, they bought them two cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either. They licked it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley.

This had been the best morning the Potter twins had had in a long time. Of course they were careful not to walk to close to Dudley and Piers. They even got to eat in a real restaurant.

Bella and Harry should have known it wouldn't last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can – but at the moment was fast asleep.

"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He walked away.

Harry and Bella moved over toward the snake. Despite the fact that it was asleep, _they _still found it very interesting. There was no company for that snake, nothing to do all day but have people watch you. It looked even worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom.

"I how you feel," Harry told the snake. Then the strangest thing happened.

The snake's eyes shot open.

Very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with the children's. It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave them a look that said quite plainly: "I get that all the time."

"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded his head. Bella backed away but Harry hardly noticed.

Then there was a loud yelling sound from Dudley. "DAD, MUM, PIERS! GET OVER HERE QUICK! YOU WON'T BELIVE WHAT THE SNAKE IS DOING!" Dudley and Piers pushed Harry out of the way to get a better look.

But Bella and Harry didn't like that. They didn't like that at all.

It all happened very fast. For the first few seconds, no one really noticed that the glass was gone. Then Dudley went to press his face upon the glass. Piers tried to warn him but he was too late. And so Dudley fell face forward into the snake habitat.

The great snake was slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."

The Dursley family was quite the sight to see. Dudley trapped behind the glass yelling for his mommy. Aunt Petunia screaming for her Dudleykinz. Uncle Vernon rushing to find the manager. Bella trying to hold in her laughter. And a very _very_ scarred looking Harry.

By the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.

But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

When he and Bella were safely inside dimly lit cupboard, Bella finally lost it.

"What the bloody hell was that?" she hissed.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what _were_ you saying?"

Harry was puzzled. Surely Bella would have heard him. She was standing right next to him after all. "Bells, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You, you talked to the snake. You weren't speaking English."

"Of course I was speaking English," Harry argued.

"Really? I've never seen words like _hash ha sa sesse_ _ah_ in a dictionary before. It's just strange."

"I never said any of those words before, Bells! You've gotta believe me."

Bella sighed. "I want to believe you, Harry. I really do. I think I might be going mad."

"Mad?" he asked. "Why would you be going mad?"

"It's just that," Bella paused, "Never mind. It sounds stupid."

"Stupider that talking to snakes? Come on, Bells." Harry batted his eyelashes like a little girl and jutted out his lip.

"I'll tell you," she began, "if you promise me you will never make that face again." Harry's puppy dog face immediately melted. "Okay, well remember when Piers and Dudley came up and pushed you?" Harry nodded. "Well they just made me so, so angry. I mean, no one can mess with my brother but me. And then I wished that they would just fall through the glass. Then they could see what it felt like to be the animals for once. And then it happened."

Harry was speechless for a moment. "I believe you," he said finally.

"Really?"

"Of course. It's spooky but I believe you."

"I wish some had the answers. I don't understand we can do so much, without meaning to."

"Me either. And who knows?" Harry joked. "One day someone might bust us out of this prison cell and take us somewhere we can really live."

"Even if it doesn't happen, we can always dream," Bella smiled at her brother.

And with that they turned off the light hoping that the rest of the week would pass quickly.

**A/N: Like it or hate it? Also I've been getting a lot of questions about parings. Obviously a lot will be changed. I've been told that people don't want Bella to be with Edward. I'm planning on writing my on Potter Twins version of all of the Harry Potter books so please keep in mind that this will go on for a long time. Please Review!**


	3. The Letters

**A/N: Wow! Once again you've amazed me with the reviews and alters. Thank you so much to everyone who is reading! Before I get on with the story I have a couple questions to answer first.**

**From PotterNinja: To answer your first question, I do think that it would be a great idea for them to have privet conversations, I thought they would split Voldemort's 'gifts' 50/50. For your second question, Bella had backed away from the window and Dudley pushed Harry into her.**

**From: The Agent of Fire: Bella and Harry are just like any other brother and sister. I have a little brother myself and we don't like the same things but we still have similar traits. It's the same way with Bella and Harry. They are both very strong and brave and they are both very bright. Those are there shared qualities. They can act different ways but their hearts are both pure. **

**Also, I'm very sorry for the delay. I will try and post the next chapter sometime this week to make it up, but I can't promise you guys anything. I'm definitely not done with these twins yet so no worries.**

**Okay now back to the story.**

The Letters from No One

Bella and Harry had gotten there longest punishment ever. They by the time they were let out of the cup bored they had lost about five pounds and it was summer break.

For the most part, Bella and Harry were glad school was over. The sun was shining and the could hide from Aunt Petunia outside. But there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day.

Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.

Until they would see Bella. Only then would Piers and Dudley continue Harry Hunting. Malcolm and Gordon would always try and talk to her. And whenever Dudley wasn't in the room, so would Piers! It made Bella want to throw up. Whenever they were over, she would spend the majority of the either helping to hide Harry or reading in the cup bord.

This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where there could be a tiny ray of hope. When September came he and Bella would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in their lives, they would be away from Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers was going there too. Bella and Harry, on the other hand, were going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry one day. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick." Then he ran, before Dudley could understand what he had said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry and Bella at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem to be quite as fond of them as before. She let the children watch television and gave them a bit of chocolate cake that tasted like she'd had it for several years.

That evening, Dudley walked around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Dudleykinz, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Bella was holding back her insults. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Bella and Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. They went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.

"What's this?" Bella asked Aunt Petunia though she seemed to already know her answer. Aunt Petunia's lips tightened as they always did if either of the twins dared to ask a question.

"Your new school uniforms," she said.

Harry looked in the bowl again.

"Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."

Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.

But once again Bella, stubborn as she was, didn't know when to close her mouth.

"So what I'm hearing is that you didn't want to but anything for the little orphans, so you just died so old, smelly clothes that would never fit Harry or me?"

Aunt Petunia's mouth became an even thinner white line. _Oh great,_ Harry thought, _She's done it now._

Just when it looked like Aunt Petunia was going to start screaming at Bella, Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Bella and Harry's new uniforms. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Let's make Bella get it instead," Aunt Petunia offered.

"Make Dudley get it," Bella said.

"Just make Harry get it."

"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley." Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Four things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a bill, and – two letters for Bella and Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would. He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake: Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. And Bella's was just the same.

Turning the envelope over in his hands, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake all around a large letter H.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs." He chuckled at his own joke.

Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk –."

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got letters!" Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was snatched out of his hands by Uncle Vernon with Bella's letter right under it.

"Those are ours!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back. Bella gave him a confused look. _Ours? _she mouthed and Harry nodded his head.

"Who'd be writing to you." sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge. He was starting to look like the uniforms in the sink.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment she looked like she might faint.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness – Vernon!" They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that the children were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored and he didn't like it. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. "I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine. And Bella dissevers hers as well."

"Wait, did you say that Bella had a letter as well?" Aunt Petunia questioned.

"_He_ snatched them both out of my hands."

Aunt Petunia made a choking sound and clutched her throat. "Get out, all of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Harry didn't move.

"WE WANT OUR LETTERS! GIVE US OUR LETTERS!" he shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by their necks, threw Bella of his shoulder, and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Bella beat them both to it, so Dudley and Harry, with his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on their stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address – how could they possibly know where they sleepy. You don't think they're watching the house, do you?"

"Watching – spying – they could be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want –" Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything... "

"But –"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia, much less two of them! Didn't we swear when we took them in we'd never let this happen?" That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry and Bella in the cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's been writing to us?"

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "As to where it is, I have burned it."

"Both of them?" Bella asked.

"Yes. It wouldn't be right for you children to be reading other peoples mail."

"It was not a mistake!" said Harry angrily, "Those letters had our cupboard on it."

"Harry's right," Bella stated. "You and Aunt petunia are the one's taking and reading other peoples mail. Not us. Those letters _were_ ours."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

"That reminds me, um, about the cup bored. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you two are getting a little big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.

"Why?" asked Bella who was suddenly suspicious.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped Uncle Vernon. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

It only took Harry and Bella one trip upstairs to move everything they owned from the cupboard to this room. They sat down on the bed and stared around them.

"I don't understand this." Harry told Bella once they had moved their thins into the closet

"Me either. I don't like the way they've been acting for the passed twenty four hours. Ever since they read that bloody letter they've been treating us like we're going to blow them up or something."

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Harry said jokingly.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't want them in there... I need that room... make them get out..." Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in the cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly. Bella was just eating her breakfast.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry and Bella, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's two more! 'Miss B. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive –'" With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall with Harry and Bella right behind him.

Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Bella had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. And Harry was hanging onto his leg. After a minute of fighting, in which everyone was hit by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon stood up, gasping for breath, with Bella and Harry's letters clutched in his hand.

"Go to your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry and Bella. 

Harry paced around the new room. Someone knew that he Bella had moved out of the cupboard and they seemed to know they hadn't received the first letters. Surely that meant they'd try again. And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys or Bella. Harry tip toed downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door. Suddenly, Harry leapt into the air. He'd stepped on something big and squashy on the doormat, and there was no question that it was alive! Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. And sure enough he could see them. Six letters addressed him and Bella in green ink.

And before Harry could even pretest, Uncle Vernon began ripping the letters to shreds. He didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"These people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters each arrived for Harry and Bella. They had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry and Bella found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Bella in amazement. Bella just stuck her tongue out.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and ill, but happy.

"What a fine day Sunday. No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "No damn letters today, not one blasted –" Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came shooting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one, Bella chased after them as fast as she could.

"Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. Aunt Petunia found Bella with a letter in her hand and kicked her out of the room. But soon enough it was she and Dudley that had ran out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!" He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had finally made their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter to himself whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling with tears streaming down his face. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley, Bella, and Harry all shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Harry and Bella were small enough to shared one of the twin beds. Dudley snored, and Bella eventually fell asleep, but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"Is one of you a Potter? I got about an a hundred of these at the front desk." She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address: Mr. H. Potter Room 17 Railview Hotel Cokeworth Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room. 

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he." Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car.

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television." Monday. This reminded Bella of something. If it was Monday – and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television – then tomorrow, Tuesday, was hers and Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, their birthdays were never exactly fun – last year, the Dursleys had given Bella a coat hanger and Harry a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.

Still, you only got to be eleven once.

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package. Aunt Petunia asked what he'd bought but he wouldn't give her an answer.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!" It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!" A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.

"I've already got us some food," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!" It was freezing in the boat. Freezing sea spray and rain trickled down their necks and chilly wind whipped around their faces. After what seemed like hours they finally reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled like seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Uncle Vernon's food turned out to be a bag of chips each and five bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry and Bella privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer them up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the house and a fierce wind rattled the windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry and Bella were left on the floor to curl up under the thinnest blanket.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry and Bella couldn't sleep. They shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, their stomachs rumbling in hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told them they'd be eleven in ten minutes. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

"Five minutes to go." Harry told Bella.

"This might just be the worst birthday yet," she commented.

"At least they haven't killed us," Harry tried hopefully.

"Harry," Bella gave her brother a look. "I don't think starving us, locking us up, and taking away our mail is any better. I just wish that –"

"Mom and dad were here," he said knowing exactly what she was going to say. If there was one thing Bella hated more than the Dursleys', it was the car crash that killed their parents. "I know, so do I, Bells. But our luck won't be changing anytime soon. We just need to hang on until we're eighteen."

"Eighteen," Bella said as she rested her head on Harry's shoulder. "That sounds nice." But Bella only stayed put for a few seconds. "Oh my gosh!" she jumped.

"What is it?" Harry ask ed suddenly concerned for his sister.

"I heard something," Bella told him.

"What did it sound like?"

"It was like creak outside." Harry sighed. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although they might be warmer if it did.

"Don't worry, Bells," he said. His nickname for her always calmed her down. 'I'm sure it was just the wind."

Bella took a deep breath. "Alright. Say Harry?"

"Yeah,"

"What do you think the house looks like right about now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well there were just so may letters when we left. I think it's going to be so full of letters when we get back that we'd be able to steal one somehow." 

"I don't know if that's a good idea. Maybe we should just focus on making it through the night first."

Bella heard another noise. "Was that the sea, slapping on the rock like that?"

"You're paranoid, Bells," Harry told her rolling his eyes.

"I am not!" she whispered back confidently. "I know I heard something."

Two minutes later she heard another noise. This time Harry heard it too

"What was that funny crunching noise?" he asked her.

"It what I was trying to tell you before. It sounds like rocks crumbling into the sea."

"Bella we'll be fine." He heard the crunching noise again only this time it sounded louder, closer to them.

"Fine," Bella huffed at him. She glanced at Dudley's watch and say the time change. That took her mind off of the crunching noise. In one minute to go and she and Harry would be eleven.

Bella tugged on Harrys harm, pointed to the watch and began counting in her head. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten... nine – maybe they'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him – three... two...one...

BOOM!

The whole shack shook and Harry and Bella sat bolt upright. They were both staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.


	4. The Keeper of the Keys

**A/N: Wow you all are amazing! Thank you to everyone who keeps reading!**

The Keeper of the Keys

BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he asked stupidly.

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a gun in his hands – so that had been what was in the long, thin package he had brought with them.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I'm warning you – I'm armed!" There was a pause. Then – SMASH! The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..." He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.

"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

"An' here they are! Harry an' Bella!" said the giant.

The two of them looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.

"Las' time I saw you two, you was only babies," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yet dad, Harry, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes. An' Bella, you the spittin' image o' Lily! Hair and all! 'Cept for the nose 'course – that's a Potter nos–"

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise. "I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

"Anyway – Harry, Bella," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here – fraid I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right." From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Bella opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry and Bella written on it in green icing.

Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?" The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm then proceeded to do the same with Bella.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together.

"I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind." His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat that were needed to make tea and a good snack. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley." The giant chuckled darkly.

"Yet great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry." He passed the sausages to Harry and Bella, who were so hungry they had never tasted anything so wonderful, but they still couldn't take there eyes off the giant.

Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, Bella said, "I'm sorry, but we still don't really know who you are." The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts – yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er – no," said Harry.

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," Harry said quickly.

"Sorry." barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"

"All of what." asked Bella.

"ALL O' WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!" He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut.

The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that these children – this boy and girl! – know nothin' abou' – about ANYTHING." Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. The same went for Bella. So what could this man be talking about?

"We do know some things," Harry said.

"Yeah," Bella tried. "We can, you know, do math and stuff."

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?" Bella and Harry asked in unison. Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.

"DURSLEY!" he boomed.

Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "_Mimblewimble_." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry Bella.

"But yeh must know about yet mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."

"What? Our – our mom and dad weren't famous, were they?" Bella asked Harry. Harry shook his head as to say no.

"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing the children with a bewildered stare. "Yeh don' know what yeh are." he said finally.

Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sit! I forbid you to tell them anything!" A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

"You never told them. Never told them what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer them. I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from them all these years!"

"Kept what from us?" said Harry eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry, Bella – yet wizards." There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

"— we're what?" gasped Harry.

"Wizards, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' thumpin' good'uns, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letters."

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. and Ms. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. Bella was eagerly looking over his shoulder. He pulled out the letter and read: HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards) Dear Mr. Potter, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.

Questions exploded inside Bella's head like fireworks and she couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes Harry stammered, "What does it mean, they await our owl?"

"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl – a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl – a long quill, and a roll of parchment.

With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down: _Dear Professor Dumbledore, Given Harry and Bella the letter._

Taking them to buy their things tomorrow.

Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.

Hagrid.

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.

Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly. Bella's mouth was hanging open as well so Harry shut it for her.

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.

"They're not going," he said.

Hagrid grunted.

"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop them," he said.

"A what?" asked Bella, interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like thern. An' it's your bad luck you two grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took them in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of them! Wizards indeed!"

"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew all along that we were – wizards?"

"Why didn't you ever tell us you knew something?" Bella screeched at them. She looked almost as mad as Hagrid.

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was. Oh, she got a letter just like that and then disappeared off to that – that school – and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was – a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as abnormal – and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

Harry had gone very white. Bella seemed to have stopped breathing.

As soon as she said this Bella found her voice and said, "Blown up? You told us they died in a car crash!"

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry and Bella Potter not knowin' their own story when every kid in our world knows their names!"

"But why? What happened." Harry asked urgently.

The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.

"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Bells, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh - but someones gotta – yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'." He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.

"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh – mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..." He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with – with a person called – but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows –"

"Who?" Bella asked.

"Well – I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?" Harry wonder aloud.

"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..." Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.

"Could you write it down?" Bella suggested.

"Nah -can't spell it. All right – Voldemort." Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this – this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too – some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him – an' he killed 'em. Horrible.

"One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.

"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you two was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' – an' –" Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad – I knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find – anyway... You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then – an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead or that little thing on yer wrist. That's no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a Powerful, evil curse touches yeh – took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even – but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age – the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts – an' you was only babies, an' you lived." Something very painful was going on in Harry and Bella's mins. As Hagrid's story came to a close, they could see that blinding flash of green light again, more clearly than they had ever remembered it before – and they remembered something else, for the first time in their lives: a high, cold, cruel laugh.

Hagrid was watching them sadly.

"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..."

"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

"Now, you listen here, children," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured - and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion – asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types – just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end –" But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley – I'm warning you – one more word... " In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.

"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.

Harry and Bella meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.

"But what happened to You-Know-Who?" Bella asked.

"Good question, Bells. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful – why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don~ reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you two finished him.

There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on – I dunno what it was, no one does – but somethin' about you stumped him, all right." Hagrid looked at Harry and Bella with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. Wizards. Him and Bella. How could they possibly be? they'd spent their life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he and Bella were really wizards, why hadn't they turned their aunt and uncle into toad by now? If they'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football or have Bella cook and clean by the time she was seven?

"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think that we can be wizards." To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.

"Not wizards, eh. Never made things happen when you was scared or angr?" Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him or Bella had happened when the two of them had been upset or angry... chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... Bella broke the wedding china but when they walked out of the room for a broom it was back together… dreading going to school with a ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?

Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.

"See." said Hagrid. "Harry and Bella Potter, not wizards – you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts." But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.

"Haven't I told you they are not going?" he hissed. "They're going to Stonewall High and they'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and they needs all sorts of rubbish – spell books and wands and –"

"If they want ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop them," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's kids goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. These names 'ave been down ever since they was born. Their off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and they won't even know themselves. They'll be with youngsters of their own sort, fer a change, an' they'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled-"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TEACH THEM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.

But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER," he thundered, "- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDORE- IN- FRONT- OF- ME!" He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley – there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Bella saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

"Harry," she tugged on his pajamas, "look." She was pointing at Dudley's bottom and Harry had to hold in a laugh. Shocked as he was, he had always thought about his cousin as a pig. This large man had just made that dream come true.

Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do." He cast a sideways look at the twins under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm – er – not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff – one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job."

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Bella.

"Oh, well – I was at Hogwarts meself but I – er – got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Why were you expelled?" Harry asked.

"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that." He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.

"You two can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."


	5. Diagon Alley

**A/N:| I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sorry to everyone! I've been getting messages asking me if I quit righting and if I will ever finish. Every time I try to get a chapter up quickly, something crazy seems to pop into my life. I can assure you all that I have not stopped writing and I won't stop until you tell me to. I will however say that the lack of reviews does take its toile on my motivation to write. Thank you to everyone who as reviewed, added me to your favorites, and/or put my stories on your alerts. Once again I am terribly sorry for not writing for a while. More reviews really do make me write a lot faster. Thank you for putting up with me. So with ou farther a due here it is! Chapter 5, enjoy!**

Diagon Alley

Bella woke early the next morning. Although she could tell it was daylight, she kept her eyes shut tight.

"It was a dream," she told herself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell us. We were going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes Harry and I be at home in the cupboard."

There was suddenly a loud tapping noise that woke up Harry.

And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Bella thought, as both their hearts sank. But Bella still didn't open her eyes. It had been such a good dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"All right," Harry mumbled, "We're getting up."

They sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off of them. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

Bella scrambled to her feet, pulling Harry up with her. She was so happy. Harry was still half asleep and struggling to stand.

"Harry," Bella tried to get his attention. "Harry look outside the window!" This got Harry to just barely open his eyes before he saw it.

"Owl!" he said as he practically jumped out of his skin.

Harry went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.

"Don't do that," Harry said as he tried to wave the owl out of the way. But every time he would get closer, the owl would snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.

"Hagrid!" said Bella said loudly. "There's an owl"

"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.

"What?" asked Harry who was still trying to stop the owl.

"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets – bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.

"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.

"Knuts?"

"The little bronze ones."

Harry counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.

Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.

"Best be Off, you two, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."

Bella was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. She had just thought of something that had completely changed her mood.

"Um – Hagrid?"

"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.

"We haven't got any money – and you heard Uncle Vernon last night ... he won't pay for us to go and learn magic."

"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"

"But if their house was destroyed –" Harry started before Hagrid cut him off.

"They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold – an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."

"Wizards have banks?" Bella asked as she went to cut the birthday cake.

"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."

Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding and Bella's jaw dropped.

"Goblins?"

"Yeah – so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, you two. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe – 'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you, gettin' things from Gringotts – knows he can trust me, see.

"Got everythin'? Come on, then."

Harry and Bella followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.

"How did you get here?" Bella asked, looking around for another boat.

"Flew," said Hagrid.

"Flew?" asked Harry.

"Yeah – but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh."

They settled down in the boat, Harry and Bella still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.

"Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving them another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter - er - speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"

"Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic and Bella nodded her head like an excited little girl. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.

"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.

"Spells – enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the highsecurity vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way – Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."

Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry and Bella had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, they'd never had so many questions in their lives.

"Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.

"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Bella asked, before she could stop herself.

"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, 0 ' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."

"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?" Harry asked. Now that they were on the topic, some questions couldn't hurt.

"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."

"Why?" Bella asked.

"Why? Blimey, Bella, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."

At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.

Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Bella and Harry couldn't blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"

"Hagrid," said Bella, panting a bit as she and Harry ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"

"Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."

"You'd like one?" Harry asked him confused.

"Wanted one ever since I was a kid – here we go."

They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their three tickets.

People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.

"Still got yer letters?" he asked as he counted stitches. Harry took the two parchment envelopes out of his pocket.

"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh need."

Harry unfolded a second piece of paper they hadn't noticed the night before, and read:

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY UNIFORM_

_First-year students will require:_

_1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)_

_2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

_3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

_4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)_

_Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags_

_COURSE BOOKS_

_All students should have a copy of each of the following:_

_The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk_

_A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot_

_Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling_

_A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emetic Switch_

_One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore_

_Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger_

_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander_

_The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble_

_OTHER EQUIPMENT_

_wand cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) set_

_glass or crystal phials_

_telescope set_

_brass scales_

_Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad_

_PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS_

"Can we buy all this in London?" Bella wondered aloud.

"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.

Bella and Harry had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.

"I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.

Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry and Bella had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up? If they hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, they couldn't help trusting him.

"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."

It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry and Bella wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Bella had the most peculiar feeling that only she, Harry, and Hagrid could see it. Before she could mention this, Hagrid had steered them inside.

For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"

"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hands on Bella and Harry's shoulders and making their knees buckle.

"Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at the two twins, "is this – can this be –?"

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

"Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender, "The Potter twins... what an honor."

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward them and seized their hands, tears in his eyes.

"Welcome back, Potters, welcome back."

Harry didn't know what to say. He looked at Bella who gave him a look that showed she was just as confused as he was. Everyone was looking at them. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.

Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry and Bella found themselves shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."

"So proud, Miss Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand – I'm all of a flutter."

"Delighted, Mr. Potter, oh and Miss Potter of course, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

"We've seen you before! Haven't we, Bells?" said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement.

"Oh yes!" said Bella remembering. "You bowed to us once in a shop."

"They remember!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? they remembers me!" Harry and Bella shook hands again and again – Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.

A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Bella, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"P-P-Potters," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand and then Bella's, "c-can't t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you."

"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?" asked Bella excitedly.

"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potters?" He laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.

But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry and Bella to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.

"Must get on – lots ter buy. Come on, Bella, Harry."

Doris Crockford shook Harry's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.

Hagrid grinned at them.

"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh – mind you, he's usually tremblin'."

"Is he always that nervous?" Bella asked concerned for the professer.

"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag – never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where's me umbrella?"

Vampires? Hags? Hary and Bella's heads were swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.

"Three up... two across he muttered. "Right, stand back, you two."

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered – it wriggled – in the middle, a small hole appeared – it grew wider and wider – a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.

"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."

He grinned at Harry and Bella's looks amazement. They stepped through the archway. Bella looked quickly over her shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons – All Sizes – Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver – Self-Stirring – Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.

"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. Bella and he turned their head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad..."

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium – Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about their age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand – fastest ever –" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments they'd had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...

"Gringotts," said Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was –

"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

"Like I said, Yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid, Bella, and Harry made for the counter.

"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. and Miss Potter's safe."

"You have their with you key, Sir?"

"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry and Bella watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.

The goblin looked at it closely.

"That seems to be in order."

"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."

The goblin read the letter carefully.

"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have Someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he, Bella, and Harry followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Bella asked.

"Bella!" Harry stated.

"What? Aren't you curious?"

"Well yes but–"

"Stop it you two. And evene if I wanted to, can't tell yeh that vault." said Hagrid mysteriously.

"So than you don't want to tell us?" Bella asked. This time Harry didn't bother childing her.

"Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."

Griphook held the door open for them. Harry and Bella were surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in – Hagrid with some difficulty – and were off.

At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.

Bella and Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but they kept them wide open. Once, Bella thought she saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late – they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

"I never know," Bella called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"

"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid. "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."

He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped and Bella squealed. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"All yours," smiled Hagrid.

All theirs – it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from them faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry and Bella cost them to keep? And all the time there had been enough money for both children to always have a small fortune, buried deep under London.

Hagrid helped Harry and Bella pile some of it into a bag.

"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," said Griphook.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck. Bella was looking up trying to determine how many vaults there were when she almost fell out. Thankfully they had stopped but Hagrid's face was once again very green.

Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.

"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.

"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked.

"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin. This made both Harry and Bella shudder.

Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, they was sure, and they leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least - but at first they thought it was empty. Then they noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry and longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.

One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry and Bella didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. They didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that they were both holding more money than they'd ever had in their entire lives – more money than even Dudley had ever had.

"Might as well get yer uniforms," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, would yeh two mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry and Bella entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.

"Hogwarts, clear?" she said, when Bella started to speak. "Got the lot here – another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."

In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him) slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.

Then she left to go to the same for Bella on the girl's side of the shop.

"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.

"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.

"No," said Harry.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.

"I do – Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been – imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.

"I say, look at that man! And who's that pretty girl next to him?" asked the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at three large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.

"That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts. And the girl next to him is Bella."

"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second.

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage – lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.

"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.

"Oh, sorry," said the other, not sounding sorry at all. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"

But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin came back in, took a last look at Harry's robes, and said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.

Unlike Bella who marveled in the wonders if Diagon Alley, Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought them (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).

"What's up?" said Hagrid.

"Nothing," Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"

"Quidditch?" asked Bella unsure of what the new word meant.

"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know – not knowin' about Quidditch!"

"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pate boy in Madam Malkin's.

"–and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in."

"That's horrible!" Bella gasped.

"I know, I didn't like him at all."

"Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were – he's grown up knowin' yer names if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line O' Muggles – look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"

"So what is Quidditch?" Bella prompted him/

"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like – like soccer in the Muggle world – everyone follows Quidditch – played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls – sorta hard ter explain the rules."

"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?" Harry asked this time.

"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but –"

"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff" said Bella gloomily.

"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."

"Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?" Harry asked him curiously.

"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.

They bought Harry and Bella's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.

"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."

"Oh that's a brilliant idea!" Bella said excitedly. "What shall you do first?"

"Now slow down you two. I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."

Hagrid wouldn't let Bella buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Bella and Harry, the two examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked the children's list again.

"Just yer wands left - A yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."

Harry looked very excited while Bella's face flushed a bright red color.

"You don't have to –" she started but Hagrid wouldn't let her finish.

"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animals. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at - an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. Bella stared at the beautiful bird in awe. They couldn't stop stammering their thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.

"Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wands."

A magic wand... this was what Harry and Bella had been really looking forward to.

The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Bella felt strangely as though she had entered a very strict library while Harry looked all around the tiny room trying to take it in. Bella swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to her and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of Harry's neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. The children jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

"Hello," said Harry awkwardly.

"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. And you Isabella!" Mr. Ollivander looked her over. "You look just like her. But you have your father's nose and his eyes you know. It seems only yesterday your parents were in here buying her first wands. Lily's was ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."

Mr. Ollivander moved closer to the children. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.

"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it – it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."

Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and the children were almost nose to nose.

"And that's where..."

Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger. He looked down at Bella and saw the faint mark on her wrist.

"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..."

He shook his head and then, to the children's relief, spotted Hagrid.

"Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"

"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.

"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.

"Er – yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.

"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.

"Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.

"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now – Miss and Mr, Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er – well, we're both right-handed," said Harry.

"Hold out your arms. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. Then he did the same with Bella. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."

Bella suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between her nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a wave."

Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.

"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try –"

Harry tried – but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander. Bella stood there watching as she continued to be measured.

"No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."

Finally the tape measure stopped and Mr. Ollivander moved to help Bella. "Try this one Miss Potter. Cypress and phoenix feather, ten inches, slightly springy." And that was it. It only took her one try and she had her wand. Bella felt a sudden warmth in her fingers. She raised the wand above her head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of golden light shined throughout the room.

Harry looked at her in disbelief. He tried. And tried. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere - I wonder, now - - yes, why not – unusual combination – holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."

Harry took the wand. He felt the same sudden warmth in his fingers as Bella had. He raised the wand above his head, brought it down and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... "

He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious.."

"Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?"

Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather – just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar. It is also curious as to why that wand wanted you and Bella's wand wanted her being as she has a scar as well."

Harry swallowed.

"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you Potters... After all, He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things – terrible, yes, but great."

Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as the children and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. The children didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; Harry didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Bella's lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; the children only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped them on the shoulder.

"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said.

He bought the children hamburgers and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Harry kept looking around. Bella stared down at her plate. Everything looked so strange, somehow.

"You two all right? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.

The children wasn't sure they could explain. The children had just had the best birthday of their life – and yet – they chewed their hamburgers, trying to find the words.

"Everyone thinks we're special," he said at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but we don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? We're famous–"

"And we can't even remember what we are famous for. We have no knowledge of what happened when Vol-, sorry – I mean, the night our parents died."

Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.

"Don' you worry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yerselves. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts – I did – still do, 'smatter of fact."

Hagrid helped Harry and Bella on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys, then handed him an envelope.

"Yer tickets fer Hogwarts, " he said. "First o' September – King's Cross – it's all on yer tickets. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me... See yeh soon."

The train pulled out of the station. The children wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; they rose in their seats and pressed their noses against the window, but after they blinked and Hagrid was gone.


	6. The Journey from Platform Nine and Three

**A/N: Okay everyone! It's finally here! This is what we've all been waiting for! The Cullens on the Hogwarts Express! Review and tell me what house you think Bella should be in. Remember that Reviews help me write much faster even if it's constructive criticism or "good chapter." Also, some had asked me if the Cullens would be in this story and the answer is yes!**

The Journey from Platform Nine and Three Quarters

Bella and Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun. True, Dudley was now so scared of them he wouldn't stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't force them into cupboard, force Make them do anything, or shout at them – in fact, they barley spoke to the children at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Bella and Harry in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.

Bella and Harry stayed in their room, with there new owl. They had decided to call her Hedwig, a name Harry had found in A History of Magic. Their school books were very interesting. Bella and Harry laid on their bed reading late into the night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased. Sometime they would look up to share something interesting but other than that, they barely spoke. Every night before the children went to sleep, Bella and Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.

On the last day of August they thought they had better speak to their aunt and uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so they went down to the living room where the two adults and Dudley were watching a quiz show on television. Harry cleared his throat to let them know they was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room.

"Er – Uncle Vernon?" Bella started knowing that they would be a bit nicer with her,

Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.

"Er – we need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to – to go to Hogwarts."

Uncle Vernon grunted again.

"Would it be all right if you gave us a lift?" Harry asked him.

Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes.

"Thank you," they both replied. The children were about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.

"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"

Bella and Harry didn't say anything.

"Where is this school, anyway?"

"We don't know," said Bella, realizing this for the first time .She looked at Harry before pulling the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket.

"We just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," Harry read out loud over her shoulder.

Their aunt and uncle stared.

"Platform what?"

"Nine and three-quarters."

"Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."

"It's on the tickets."

"Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them. You'll see. You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."

"Why are you going to London?" Harry asked, trying to keep things friendly.

"Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings."

With that, Harry head up the stairs with Bella following slowly behind him trying to stifle her laughter.

Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. Bella however was sleeping soundly. Harry took one last look at his sister before he got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes – they'd change on the train. He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure they had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Harry had woken Bella and their huge, heavy trunks had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Bella, and they had set off.

They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped the trunks onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for them. Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

"Well, there you are. Platform nine – platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry and Bella turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing.

"What on earth are we going to do now!" Bella asked him frantically. They were starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig. They'd have to ask someone.

Bella stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though the was being stupid on purpose. Getting desperate, Bella asked for the train that left at eleven o'clock, but the guard said there wasn't one. In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Harry was now trying hard not to panic unlike his sister who was starting to have a breakdown. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, they had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and they had no idea how to do it; they was stranded in the middle of a station with trunks they could hardly lift, pockets full of wizard money, and a large owl.

Hagrid must have forgotten to tell them something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. Harry wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket inspector's stand between platforms nine and ten.

At that moment a group of people passed just behind them and he caught a few words of what they were saying.

"– packed with Muggles, of course –"

Bella and Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk in front of him – and they had an owl.

"Did she just say–"

"Yep."

Hearts hammering, Bella and Harry pushed their cart after them. They stopped and so did Bella and Harry, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

"Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother.

"Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go... "

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Bella and Harry watched, careful not to blink in case they missed it – but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

"Fred, you next," the plump woman said.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone – but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there – and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

"Excuse me," Bella said to the plump woman. Harry followed after her.

"Hello, dears," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."

She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

"Yes," said Harry.

"Um, The thing is – the thing is, We don't know how to –"

"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and they nodded.

"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er – okay," said Harry.

He looked at Bella and let her go first. She pushed her trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

She started to walk toward it. People jostled her on their way to platforms nine and ten. Bella walked more quickly. She was going to smash right into that barrier and then she'd be in trouble – leaning forward on he cart, she broke into a run – the barrier was coming nearer and nearer – she wouldn't be able to stop – the cart was out of control – she was a foot away – she closed her eyes ready for the crash –

It didn't come... Bella kept on running... she opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Bella looked behind her and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it, and standing in it with the same confused, dazed sort of look that Bella wore, was Harry. They had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry and Bella pushed their carts off down the platform in search of an empty seat. They passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."

"Oh, Neville," he heard the old woman sigh.

A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

"Give us a look, Lee, go on."

The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

The Potter twins pressed on through the crowd until they found an empty compartment near the end of the train. Harry put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave his and Bella's trunks toward the train door. He tried to lift them up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot. Bella stood there hopelessly knowing that if Harry couldn't lift the trunks, she certainly couldn't.

"Want a hand?" It was one of the red-haired twins they'd followed through the barrier.

"Yes, please," Harry panted.

"Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!"

With the twins' help, Bella and Harry's trunk were at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

"Thanks," said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"What's that?" said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry's lightning scar.

"Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you–" started to asked and looked at Bella who was standing next to him.

"He is," said the first twin. "They both are, aren't you?" he added to Harry.

"Huh?" said Harry.

"What are we?" Bella asked them.

"Potters, "chorused the twins.

"Oh, them," said Harry. "I mean, yes, we are."

The two boys gawked at them, and Harry felt himself turning red. Then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train's open door.

"Fred? George? Are you there?"

"Coming, Mom."

With a last look at Harry and Bella, the Weasley twins hopped off the train.

Bella sat next to Harry in their compartment. He sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.

"Ron, you've got something on your nose."

The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose.

"Mom – geroff" He wriggled free.

"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins.

"Shut up," said Ron.

"Where's Percy?" said their mother.

"He's coming now."

The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny silver badge on his chest with the letter P on it.

"Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves –"

"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."

"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once –"

"Or twice –"

"A minute –"

"All summer –"

"Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.

"How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.

"Because he's a prefect," said their mother fondly. "All right, dear, well, have a good term – send me an owl when you get there."

She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.

"Now, you two – this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've – you've blown up a toilet or –"

"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."

"Great idea though, thanks, Mom."

"It's not funny. And look after Ron."

"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."

"Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

"Hey, Mom, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?"

Harry leaned back quickly so they couldn't see him looking.

"You know those kids we helped onto the platform? Know who they are?"

"Who?"

"Potters!"

Harry heard the little girl's voice.

"Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see them, Mom, eh please..."

"You've already seen them, Ginny, and the poor children aren't something you goggle at in a zoo. Are they really, Fred? How do you know?"

"Asked them. Saw the scars. It's really there - like the sky."

"Poor dears - no wonder they were alone, I wondered. They were so polite when they asked how to get to the platform."

"Never mind that, do you think they remember what You-Know-Who looks like?"

Their mother suddenly became very stern.

"I forbid you to ask them, Fred. No, don't you dare. As though they need reminding of that on their first day of school."

"All right, keep your hair on."

A whistle sounded.

"Hurry up!" their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.

"Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls."

"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat."

"George!"

"Only joking, Mom."

The train began to move. Harry saw the boys' mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.

Harry watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of excitement. He didn't know what he was going to but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

"I can't believe it!" Bella said breaking the silence.

"Which part?" Harry asked.

"All of it! We don't have to see the Dursleys for a whole year and we get to learn magic! I can't wait to see Dudley's face when we come back!"

"Me either! He'll probably think we'll turn him into a toad or something!" They both laughed at the thought of Dudley as a toad as it seemed to fit him quite well.

The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy came in.

"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite the twins. "Everywhere else is full."

They both shook their heads and the boy sat down. He glanced at them and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn't looked. Harry saw he still had a black mark on his nose.

"Hey, Ron."

The Weasley twins were back.

"Listen, we're going down the middle of the train – Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."

"Right," mumbled Ron.

"Harry, Bella," said the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then."

"Bye," said Harry, Bella, and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

"Are you really the Potters?" Ron blurted out.

Harry nodded and Bella gave a smile.

"Oh -well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron. "And have you really got – you know… the scars?"

Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar and Bella lifted her sleeve. Ron's eyes went back and forth between the two scars. "So that's where You-Know-Who

"Yes," said Bella, "but we can't remember it."

"Nothing?" said Ron eagerly.

"Well – I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else," said Harry.

"I remember someone screaming and pain." Bella added.

"Wow," said Ron. He sat and stared at them for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.

"Are all your family wizards?" asked Bella asked eagerly, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.

"Er – Yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"So you must know loads of magic already."

The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.

"I heard you went to live with Muggles," said Ron. "What are they like?"

"Horrible -well, not all of them. Our aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I'd had three wizard brothers."

"Hey, what about me?" Bella asked offended.

"You're not that bad either, Bells." Harry smiled at his sister.

'It must be so cool to have that many brothers!" Bella commented excitedly.

"Five," said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left – Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

"Oh, I'm afraid of rats!" Bella said feeling squeamish. "Once our aunt and uncle thought that we had a small mouse problem and they had us set traps for them. Then the made us wake up at five o'clock every morning until we caught one. It turned it wasn't mice at all! It was a huge rat! And it tried to bite me! Uncle Vernon tried to make me kill it but I–"

"Bella," Harry interjected.

"Hmm?"

"Too much."

Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep. Bella was having trouble not screaming. "His name's Scabbers," Ron told them, "and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't affo – I mean, I got Scabbers instead."

Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.

"I need a little bit of air," Bella stated getting up and walking out of the compartment. She thought she might vomit or cry at the sight of another rat.

"You'll be back won't you?" Harry asked his sister.

"Yep." She said as she promptly exited. She had barley been out of the compartment for ten seconds before two people knocked into her.

"Sorry, I didn't see you." The girl said. She was short with pale skin and short spiky black hair. Her golden eyes were very interesting. Then Bella saw the boy next to her. Wow! He was cute! His bronze tousled waves of hair were perfectly messy. His cheekbones were the kinda that sculptures dream of. He was pale it worked for him. And he had the same eyes as the short girl. Even in his young age, he was hot!

Bella was stunned. She was unable to speak. Unable too keep her eyes off the boy who was giving her a strange look.

"I'm Alice!" the short girl broke the silence. She gave Bella a hug. And this is my brother Edward!" he gave Bella a shy smile and she blushed.

"I'm Bella Potter," said and the other two gasped. _Crap!_ She thought. _I was this close to making a semi-normal friend._

"_The Bella Potter!"_ Alice and Edward asked in unison.

"One and only but please don't make a big deal out of it." They were quite for a while, just sitting in the floor.

"So why did you guys fall?" Bella asked. _Stupid question, Bella._ She thought to herself. But Alice seemed to have no problem answering.

"We didn't. Emmett pushed us."

"Who's Emmett?"

"He's our brother," answer the cute one Bella now knew as Edward. "He said our compartment was too cramped and kicked us out. Well Rosalie helped with that."

"Rose is our brother's '_friend_'." Alice explained. "They met here last year and I swear they haven't been apart since."

"Would you like to sit with me in my compartment? It's only my brother and our new friend Ron."

Edward looked hesitant but Alice wasn't at all. "Sure! I'd love to meet them!" They three of them stood up with some difficulty and opened up the compartment to their right.

Harry told Ron all about having to wear Dudley's old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. How terrible his 'family' was to him and Bella.

"... and until Hagrid told us, we didn't know anything about being wizards or even about our parents or Voldemort"

Ron gasped.

"What?" said Harry.

"You said You-Know-Who's name!" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you, of all people –"

"I'm not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name," said Harry, I just never knew you shouldn't. See what I mean? Bella and I, we've got loads to learn... I bet," he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, "I bet I'm the worst in the class. Bells, she's always good at everything."

"You bet I am!" Bella said coming back in through the door way.

"You're back!" Harry said brightly.

"And I brought people!" Bella sat down next to Harry. Alice and Edward followed behind her, Edward taking a seat next to Ron and Alice next to Bella.

"Bells," Harry started. "You didn't just drag them here did you/"

"Of course not! I asked them if they wanted to sit with us after their brother kicked them out of the compartment to be with his girlfriend." Harry blushed feeling a little silly. Once they all introduced themselves the questions started up again.

"How old is your brother?" Harry asked them.

"He's a second year Gryffindor." Alice told them. She seemed confident. "Rosalie is second year as well her twin Jasper." She said the last name a bit dreamily but they all decided it was best to ignore it. Instead the Potters focused on something else.

"What does it mean to be in Gryffindor?" Bella asked.

"Fred and George are in that house." Ron told them "They're in trouble a lot and they're really fun. But Percy's in Gryffindor too and he's just an annoying prefect." This made Edward chuckle.

"I know what you mean! Emmett is big idiot and he's in Gryffindor. I guess the hat just chooses who it wants."

"What's the hat?"

"The hat is–"

"Alice," Edward looked at his sister. You're going to ruin all of the surprises and you've never even been to Hogwarts."

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Harry and Bella, who hadn't had any breakfast, leapt to their feet, but Ron's ears went pink again and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. Harry went out into the corridor.

He had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry – but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron stared as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving," said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.

"I want some!" Bella grabbed a handful of sweets and just started eating. Alice and Edward dug in as well.

Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, "She always forgets I don't like corned beef."

"Swap you for one of these," said Harry, holding up a pasty. "Go on –"

"You don't want this, it's all dry," said Ron. "She hasn't got much time," he added quickly, "you know, with five of us."

"Go on, have a pasty," said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with everyone, eating their way through all the pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).

"What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs.

"They're not really frogs, are they?" Bella asked concerned.

"No," said Edward.

"But see what the card is!" Ron told him. "I'm missing Agrippa."

"What?" asked Harry.

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't know – Chocolate Frogs have cards, inside them, you know, to collect – famous witches and wizards." Alice told them.

"I've got about five hundred," Ron told them, "but I haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."

Harry unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a man's face. He wore half- moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

"So this is Dumbledore!" said Harry.

"Don't tell me you'd never heard of Dumbledore!" said Ron. "Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa – thanks

Harry turned over his card and read:

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS:

_Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling._

Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared.

"He's gone!" Bella exclaimed.

"Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," Edward snorted and Alice kicked him for his rudeness.

"He'll be back." Alice told them.

"No!" Ron exclaimed. "I've got Morgana again and I've got about six of her... do you want it?" he asked Bella and Harry. "You can start collecting."

Ron's eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.

"Help yourself," said Harry. "But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos."

"Do they? What, they don't move at all?" Ron sounded amazed. "weird!"

Bella opened a container of Bertie Bots Every Flavor Beans. "You want to be careful with those," Edward warned her.

"When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor – you know," Ron went on. "you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and mar- malade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he got a booger- flavored one once."

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.

"Bleaaargh – see? Sprouts."

They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn't touch, which turned out to be pepper.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy they had passed on platform nine and threequarters came in. He looked tearful.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

When they all shook their heads, he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"He'll turn up," said Alice.

"Yes," said the boy miserably. "Well, if you see him..."

He left.

"Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron. "If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk."

The rat was still snoozing on Ron's lap as Bella tried very hard not to look at it.

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..."

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway

He had just raised his 'wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."

She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.

"Er – all right."

He cleared his throat.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard – I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough – I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are all of you?"

She said all this very fast.

Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart either.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.

"Edward Mason."

"Alice Cullen."

"Harry Potter,"

"Bella Potter."

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course – I got a few extra books. For background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.

"We are?" said Bella, feeling dazed.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do any of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell – George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."

"Where all of your brothers in Gryffindor?" asked Bella.

"Yep," said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."

"That's the house Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?"

"Yeah," said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.

"You know, I think the ends of Scabbers' whiskers are a bit lighter," said Alice, trying to take Ron's mind off houses. "So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?"

Harry and Bella had been wondering what a wizard did once he'd finished school.

"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts," said Ron. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles – someone tried to rob a high security vault."

They all stared at him.

"Really? What happened to them?"

"Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."

Harry turned this news over in his mind. He was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You- Know-Who was mentioned. He supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying "Voldemort" without worrying.

"What's your Quidditch team?" Ron asked.

"Holly head Harpies!" Alice stated.

"Bulgarian National Quidditch team!" Edward stated glad to be talking sports.

"Er – We don't know any," Harry confessed.

"What!" Ron looked dumbfounded. "Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world –" And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he'd been to with his brothers and the broomstick he'd like to get if he had the money. He was just taking Harry through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn't Neville the toadless boy, or Hermione Granger this time.

Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: it was the pale boy from Madam Malkin's robe shop. He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he'd shown back in Diagon Alley.

"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that the Potters are in this compartment."

"Yes," said Bella. Harry was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigget. Draco Malfoy looked at him.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

He turned back to Harry. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."

He held out his hand to shake Harry's, but Harry didn't take it.

"I think Bella and I can tell who the wrong sort are for ourselves, thanks," he said coolly.

Draco Malfoy didn't go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," he said slowly. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."

All the boys stood up. The girls sat their stunned. They couldn't believe he had the nerve.

"Say that again," Ron said, his face as red as his hair.

"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.

"Unless you get out now," said Harry, more bravely than he felt, because Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than him, Edward, or Ron.

"But we don't feet like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."

Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron - Ron leapt forward, but before he'd so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell.

Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle's knuckle - Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbets finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they'd heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in.

"What has been going on?" she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.

I think he's been knocked out," Ron said to Harry. He looked closer at Scabbers. "No – I don't believe it – he's gone back to sleep-"

And so he had.

"You've met Malfoy before?"

Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.

"I've heard of his family," said Edward darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He turned to look at the door and Hermione was back once again.

"Can we help you with something?" Ron asked.

"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

"Scabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron, scowling at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"

"All right – I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," said Hermione in a sniffy voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know? Just there."

Ron glared at her as she left. Harry peered out of the window. It was getting dark. He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.

He, Edward, and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Ron's were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath them. They took turns changing in the compartment so the girls would have some privacy.

A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time.

Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

Harry's stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles. Bella felt sick but the Cullens looked perfectly fine. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Bella shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Bella, Harry?"

Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.

"C'mon, follow me – any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n five to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry, Bella, and Ron were followed into their boat by Edward and Alice. "Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then – FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, Oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

**A/N: Okay so I have a few announcements!**

**I lied to you all before. I'm going to start the potential for relationships in this book. Everyone will probably end up with their original pairing by the end of the series but I'm not so sure about that yet. However I can tell you all that there will be other people in their lives before they get to those couples. ( smiles deviously)**

**I have a few ideas about the Cullens. The first is that they can just be wizards. They second id that they are all half vampires which if why I gave Edward and Alice golden eyes and pale skin. The third is that they're kinda like Nessie. They grow until they look about 18 or 20 but at a normal human pace but are complete vampires.**

**Tell me what houses you want them to be in! I will not change Ron and Harry's Houses because it complicates the story way too much. But if you have a certain idea of what houses you want Alice, Bella, Edward, and … JACOB to be in, let me know. Review and tell me.**

**Review! I'll update faster! I love reviews! Tell me how you like it and share your ideas with me! I love that because you guys help me be a better writer and I get an idea of what you want top read!**

**And finally I just want to thank you guys for putting up with my lack updating. These chapters take me a while to write and I try to use as much from the books as possible. I love you guys for keeping up with this. Thank you so much!**

** ~NessBellaLondon22**


	7. The Sorting Hat

**A/N: thank to everyone who's been reading! Thank you to everyone who helped out with the housing and I want to give a huge thank you to tabooo22 my best friend for helping me as well. I really love everyone's feedback!**

**Now time to respond to comments!**

**I thought about putting Edward, Alice, and Bella in Slytherin but then Bella would have been separate from Harry and it would be pretty complicated. Also how would Bella and Jacob become friends? Alice doesn't exactly fit the character for a Slytherin and I know that Edward starts off cold but we all know he isn't so bad on the inside. The only person I could really see going into Slytherin was Rosalie but she's already a Gryffindor just because I couldn't see Emmett have a relationship with a Slytherin.**

The Sorting Hat

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Bella's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

"Firs' years, this is Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Bella could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right – the rest of the school must already be here – but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They all crowded in, standing very close together. Far too close as Bella was concerned.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be like your family. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking and you will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose. Bella tugged and pulled on her robes trying to make them perfect while Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" Bella asked to no one in particular.

"Some sort of test, I think." Ron responded. "Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."

Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt and Bella looked like she might be sick. A test? In front of the whole school? But they didn't know any magic yet. Bella didn't know any of these people! She didn't want to make a fool out of herself! What on earth would they have to do?

They hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Bella and Harry tried hard not to listen to her. They'd never been more nervous. Bella kept her eyes fixed on the door and held on tightly to her brother's hand. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead them to their doom.

Then something happened that made Bella jump about a foot in the air – several people behind them screamed.

"What the –?"

Bella nearly fainted. Harry gasped. So did the people around them. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "We ought to give him a second chance –"

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost – I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

"New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?"

A few people nodded mutely.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."

Feeling oddly as though her legs had turned to jelly, Bella got into line behind hind Harry –who's hand she was still griping– with Ron right in front of them and Alice behind Bella. They walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Bella and Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. Hundreds of faces stared at them. The ghosts were all around the great hall. Bella looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. She squeezed Harry's hand tighter to get his attention,

"Ow!" he complained.

"Look up!" Bella told him and when he did, he was mesmerized. They heard Hermione whisper, "Its bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in _Hogwarts, A History_."

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the sky.

The Potters quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. It looked like it should have been thrown out ages ago.

Everyone in the hall was staring at the hat. Bella and Harry stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth – and the hat began to sing:

_"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,_

_But don't judge on what you see,_

_I'll eat myself if you can find_

_A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_

_Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_And I can cap them all._

_There's nothing hidden in your head_

_The Sorting Hat can't see,_

_So try me on and I will tell you_

_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor,_

_Where dwell the brave at heart,_

_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;_

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,_

_Where they are just and loyal,_

_Those patient Hufflepuffis are true And unafraid of toil;_

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_

_if you've a ready mind,_

_Where those of wit and learning,_

_Will always find their kind;_

_Or perhaps in Slytherin_

_You'll make your real friends,_

_Those cunning folk use any means_

_To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don't be afraid!_

_And don't get in a flap!_

_You're in safe hands (though I have none)_

_For I'm a Thinking Cap!"_

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Alice whispered to Bella. "I'm gonna kill Emmett; he was going on about wrestling a troll."

Bella smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, but she did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking a lot of her; Bella didn't feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for her.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moments pause –

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Black, Jacob!" Bella knew that name! Why did she know that name?

A boy with tan skin and jet black hair walked up to sit on the stool. You could see that even at eleven he was quite muscular. He had beautiful brown eyes and a knowing sort of look as he sat on that stool. The hat didn't take very long deciding his fate.

"GRYFFINDOR!" it shouted and the boy happily walked towards his new table.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the second new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Ron's twin brothers were catcalling.

"Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin. Perhaps it was Bella's imagination, after all she'd heard about Slytherin, but she thought they looked like rather unpleasant people. Bella was starting to feel definitely sick now.

"Cullen, Alice!" Alice skipped up towards the stool and had a huge smile on her face as the hat called out:

"GRYFFINDOR!" she skipped over to the table and took a seat right next to someone that must have been Emmett.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Sometimes the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus,"

The boy sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Ron groaned and Alice gave a welcoming smile.

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. The hat finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR,"

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

"Mason, Edward!" Edward walked up to the stool and put the hat on his head. He was so calm. The hat seemed to be considering an awful lot. It sat there for a few minutes. Then the hat yelled loudly:

"GRYFFINDOR!" The table cheered loudly for him and he took a seat across from Emmett.

There weren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then "Perks, Sally-Anne" and then, at last – "Potter, Bella!"

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Bella Potter?"

"Do you think Harry's here too?"

The last thing Bella saw before the hat dropped over her eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him and Harry looking at her with a frightened expression. Next second she was looking at the black inside of the hat. She waited.

Hmm," said a small voice in her ear. "Difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, A my goodness, oh yes... So where shall I put you?"

Bella gripped the edges of the stool and thought, _Not Slytherin, please not Slytherin_.

"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You would do well, you know, it's all here. Maybe Ravenclaw? Definitely not Hufflepuff. I guess it should be – GRYFFINDOR!"

Bella heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. She took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table taken a seat on the other side of Alice. Percy the Prefect got up and shook her hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, "We got a Potter! We got a Potter!"

Bella was so overwhelmed by everything and everyone around her that she barley noticed when Harry sat down opposite Bella and smiled. Now All of Gryffindor was in an uproar applauding and screaming that they had the Potters!

They could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest them sat Hagrid, who caught their eyes and gave them the thumbs up. Bella and Harry grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Bella spotted Professor Quirtell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron.

And now there were only three people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a Black boy even taller than Ron, joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry clapped loudly with the rest as Ron collapsed into the chair next to him.

"Well done, Ron, excellent," said Percy Weasley Pompously across Harry as "Zabini, Blaise," was made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Bella looked down at his empty gold plate. She had just realized how hungry she was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!"

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not. Bella and Emmett seemed to think it was okay.

"Is he – a bit mad?" Harry asked Percy uncertainly.

"Mad?" said Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"

The Potters mouth fell open. The dishes in front of them were now piled with food. They had never seen so many things they liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs. The Dursleys had never exactly starved them, but they'd never been allowed to eat as much as they liked. The piled their plates high with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

"That does look good," said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harry cut up his steak,

"Can't you –?" Bella started to ask him.

"I haven't eaten for nearly four hundred years," said the ghost. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident ghost of Gryffindor Tower."

"I know who you are!" said Alice suddenly. "My brother told me about you – you're Nearly Headless Nick!"

"I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy –" the ghost began stiffly, but

Ron interrupted.

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"

Sir Nicholas looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn't going at all the way he wanted.

"Like this," he said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased at the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Nick flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said, "So – new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the house championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable – he's the Slytherin ghost."

Bella looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Malfoy who, the twins were both pleased to see, didn't look too pleased with the seating arrangements.

"How did he get covered in blood?" asked Seamus with great interest.

"I've never asked," said Nearly Headless Nick delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding - "

As the twins helped themselves to treacle tarts, the talk turned to their families.

"I'm half-and-half," said Seamus. "Me dad's a Muggle. Mom didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him when he found out."

The others laughed.

"What about you, Neville?" said Ron.

"Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," said Neville, "but the family thought I was all- Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me – he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned – but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced – all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here – they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."

On Harry's other side, Percy Weasley and Hermione were talking about lessons ("I do hope they start right away, there's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be very difficult-"; "You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing – ").

Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Bella's eyes – and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Bella's arm. The strange teacher then looked Harry in the eye. He grabbed his head in pain.

"Ouch!" Harry clapped a hand to his head. Bella was holding her wrist in pain.

"What is it?" asked Percy.

"N-nothing." Bella told him. Then she mouthed to Harry _Did you feel that?_ He gave her a small head nod in response. The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling they had gotten from the teacher's look – a feeling that he didn't like them at all.

"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" Bella asked Emmett.

"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to – everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."

The twins watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at them again.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.

"Ahern – just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all students. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death."

Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did. Bella looked at him like he was insane for laughing at something so serious.

"He's not serious?" Harry muttered to Percy.

"Must be," said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere – the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least."

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

"Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!" And the school bellowed:

_"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,_

_Teach us something please,_

_Whether we be old and bald_

_Or young with scabby knees,_

_Our heads could do with filling_

_With some interesting stuff,_

_For now they're bare and full of air,_

_Dead flies and bits of fluff,_

_So teach us things worth knowing,_

_Bring back what we've forgot,_

_just do your best, we'll do the rest,_

_And learn until our brains all rot._

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

The Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed. But Bella sure wasn't! She and Alice were buzzing with excitement as Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. Ron seemed to notice the girls' strange energy as well.

"Are your sisters always like this?" he asked in a half bored half exhausted tone.

"Yes." Harry and Edward replied at the same time.

They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet– with the exception of the two young witches of course. Harry was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.

"Peeves," Percy whispered to the first years. "A poltergeist." He raised his voice, "Peeves – show yourself"

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.

"Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?"

There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

"Oooooooh!" he said, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!"

He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.

"Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" barked Percy.

Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville's head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.

"You want to watch out for Peeves," said Percy, as they set off again. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, he won't even listen to us prefects. Here we are."

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" she said.

"Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it – Neville needed a leg up – and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Percy directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase – they were obviously in one of the towers – they found their beds at last: seven four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

"Great food, isn't it?" Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings. "Get off, Scabbers! He's chewing my sheets."

Harry was going to ask Ron if he'd had any of the treacle tart, but he fell asleep almost at once.

Bella, Alice, and Hermione all headed up the stairs talking about little things like the feast and what classes they all thought would be the most interesting.

"Personally, I can't wait until third year!" Alice exclaimed.

"What happens in third year?" Bella asked curiously.

"We get to take electives." Hermione told her. "I'm taking all of them but the most interesting one is probably the Ancient Ruins class." 

"No way!" Alice told her new friend. "The best one is divination! I'm quite good at predicting the future. Sometimes I think I have visions."

"That's really cool!" Bella stated enthusiastically. "Predict something!"

Alice concentrated and then her whole face went blank. "Tomorrow, you and Harry will have an incident in potions class. You will find out about something terrible that happened at Gringotts in the Dailey Prophet. You will also meet some new and befriend him."

"That's so cool!" Bella freaked out. "What does my new friend look like?"

"That's the problem." Alice told her. "Edward's been asking me to predict things about the year for him a lot lately and I keep running into blind spots. I saw you introduce yourself in a classroom and smiling. Then I saw us sitting in the great hall and Edward giving us a look. Emmett was talking with him too."

"This is ridiculous!" Hermione told them. "You can't predict the future!"

"You're going to be called out in potions tomorrow, Mione."

"For what?"

"Being a know it all."

"I'm going to bed before you two start trying to kill each other. Goodnight." Bella told them. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Perhaps Bella had eaten a bit too much, because she had a very strange dream. She and Harry were wearing Professor Quirrell's turban, which kept talking to them, telling them they must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was their destiny. Bella told the turban she didn't want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; she tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully – and there was Malfoy, laughing at them as they struggled with it -then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold – there was a burst of green light and Bella woke, sweating and shaking.

She rolled over and fell asleep again, and when she woke next day, he didn't remember the dream at all.

**A/N: I know it was pretty short compared to the last chapter but there just wasn't as much to cover. Next chapter is the start of classes and we meet Jacob. I've also thought about the wolves. I don't think I'm bringing all of them. It'll probably just be Jacob, Seth, and Leah.**


	8. The Potions Master

**A/N: So sorry for the long wait. But I have good news for all of you! I'm on twitter now! Follow me nessbellalondon22 for more potter twins updates, spoilers, and ideas! I'll also be posting about new story ideas and would love your feedback on them.**

The Potions Master

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Next to the tall kid with the red hair."

"And next to the short one with the black hair."

"Wearing the glasses?"

"The girl with the red hair?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see her scar?"

Whispers followed Harry and Bella from the moment they left his dormitory the next day. People wouldn't stop looking at them. Harry wished they would because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry, Bella, Alice, and Ron managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first day. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone and could appear just about anywhere whenever he wanted. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.

And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as the Potters quickly found out, than waving a wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emetic the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Bella and Harry's names he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone screwing around in my class will leave it immediately and never come back in. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Alice, Edward, and Hermione Granger had made any difference to their matchs; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave them a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be more of a disappointment in Bella's opinion. His classroom smelled like garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnigan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

Bella and Harry were greatly relieved to find out that they weren't behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like them, hadn't had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron or Alice and Edward didn't have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Harry, Bella, and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

"What have we got today?" Harry asked Ron as he poured sugar on his porridge.

"Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them – we'll be able to see if it's true."

"Wish McGonagall favored us, " said Harry. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a mountain of homework the day before.

"I like that she tries to challenge us," Alice told them with a smile. "It makes the class more fun."

"You're kidding, right?" Bella asked her friend.

"Alice, even I like a good challenge," Edward told her, "but the amount of work she gives is ridiculous!"

Just then, the mail arrived. Harry and Bella had gotten used to this by now, but it had given them a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Hedwig hadn't brought the twins anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble Harry's ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls. This morning, however, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note next to Bella's arm. Harry and Bella both looked puzzled for a moment before they tore the letter open. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

_Dear Bella and Harry,_

_I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three?_

_I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig._

_Hagrid_

Harry borrowed Edward's quill, scribbled _Yes_, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.

It was lucky that they had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.

At the start-of-term banquet, the twins had already gotten the impression that Professor Snape did not particularly like them. By the end of the first Potions lesson, they knew they'd been wrong. Snape didn't just dislike Bella and Harry – he hated them.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at the Potter's name.

"Ah, Yes," he said softly, "Harry and Bella Potter. Our new – celebrities."

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid's, but they had none of Hagrid's warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. Like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the power of liquids that creep through the veins of humans, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put stopper to death. But only if you truly want to learn, will ever be able to understand any of it."

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wanted to do everything Snape had said. Edward looked like he was concentrating very hard in something. Alice looked like she was excited. Bella was scared out of her mind.

The boy sitting next to her nudged her arm gently. "Tough teacher, huh?" the boy asked with a small smile on his face. "Hope I never get into trouble with him."

Bella gave a slight chuckle. "Honestly, he kind of scares me."

The boy tossed back his long dark brown hair with a smirk. "I'm Jacob," he said with a smile.

"Bella," she told him back. "Nice to meet you."

"Miss Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Bella glanced at Jacob, who looked as stumped as she was; Hermione's hand had shot into the air.

"I don't know, sir," said Bella felling completely stupid.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut – fame clearly isn't everything," he said while he continued to ignore Hermione's hand.

"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Bella didn't have the faintest idea what a bezoar was. She tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter. She looked at Jacob again who seemed to know the answer.

"Goat's stomach," he whispered to her.

"A goat's stomach?" She asked Jacob but Snape took it as her answer.

"Is that a question or answer, Potter?"

"An answer, sir." He ignored her and turned towards Harry. Snape was still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Harry forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Dursleys', but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.

"You – Potter – why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

This was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron kicked him behind their cauldron.

"Doi' push it," he muttered, "I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Bella's mind was racing and her spirits were low. She and Harry had already lost two points for Gryffindor in their very first week . W hy did Snape hate them so much?

"Cheer up guys," said Ron, "Snape's always taking points off Fred and George."

"He does the same thing with Emmett and Jasper," Alice told them. "He just doesn't like Gryffindors."

"Can we come and meet Hagrid with you?"

"That would be great." Bella said excitedly. "Edward, do you wanna come too? I'm sure Hagrid won't mind."

"No, no. I think I'll just hand out in the comman room."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Bella. I'm just a little tired. Maybe next time."

At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Harry knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid's voice rang out, saying, "Back, Fang, back."

Hagrid's big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

"Hang on," he said. "Back, Fang."

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

"Make yerselves at home," said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Ron and started licking his ears. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

"This is Ron and Alice," Bella told Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

"Another Weasley, eh?" said Hagrid, glancing at Ron's freckles. I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest. Alice what about yir family? Would I know any of them or are you the first one 'ere?"

"You probably know my older brother and his friends. Emmett Cullen and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. They're in second year."

"Emmett Cullen. Yeah I know him and the Hales. They're like small Weasley twins."

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but all four of the children pretended to enjoy them as they told Hagrid all about their first -lessons. Fang rested his head on Ron's knee and drooled all over his robes.

They were all delighted to hear Hagrid call Fitch "that old git."

"An' as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like ter introduce her to Fang sometime. D'yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her. Fitch puts her up to it."

Bella told Hagrid about Snape's lesson. Harry held his head in shame. Bella had at least answered on question right. Harry hadn't known any of the answers. Bella was feeling stupid but Harry just felt completely and utterly lost. Hagrid told them not to worry about it, that Snape liked hardly any of the students.

"But he seemed to really hate us." Bella told him sadly.

"Rubbish!" said Hagrid. "Why should he?"

Yet Harry couldn't help thinking that Hagrid didn't quite meet his eyes when he said that.

"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron. "I liked him a lot - great with animals."

Harry wondered if Hagrid had changed the subject on purpose. While Ron told Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, Harry picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

_GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST_

_Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown._

_Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day._

_"But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon._

Harry remembered everyone telling him and Bella on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but no one had mentioned hadn't mentioned a date.

"Hagrid!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on mine and Bella's birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"

There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't meet Harry's eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again this time with Bella reading over his shoulder. The vault that was searched had been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As they four young wizards walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they'd been too polite to refuse, Harry thought that none of the lessons he'd had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Hagrid know something about Snape that he didn't want to tell Bella and Harry?

**A/N: So how was it? Sorry it was so late. Send me your thoughts on the chapter through reviews and twitter. I'll be answering all of your questions there!**


	9. Midnight Duel

**A/N: Okay, I know I know. I haven't updated in months and you are all very upset with me. You will most likely skip this because you are all mad. I kept thinking and thinking that I should update but I haven't had the time nor have I had the energy. I'm sorry that updates will most likely be slowed down.**

**As my fans and followers, I think you should all know what is going on. I was recently accepted into a ballet company. It's all very exciting but I have been devoting all of my time to my school work and dancing lately. I am also trying to come up with more ideas for the Potter Twins so the story starts to take its own turns and change it up. I have been using a lot of J.K Rowling's material. The only real difference at the moment is that I have changed the story to fit with Bella and the Cullens as well as Harry and his friends. The story will be changing very soon though!**

**Follow me on twitter nessbellalondon! I'll be able to answer all of you questions. Please review and tweet me! I love all feedback even if you are telling me I suck. Tell me what I can do to do better and what else you would like to see in the story. I love to hear your opinions and I read every single review. Thank you to all those who have kept up with this story for so long and put up with my terrible updating habits. **

**(Also as a side note I would like to dedicate this chapter to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Do whatever you can to show them how much you care even if it's just giving a dollar.)**

**Without farther a due, I present chapter 9 of the Potter Twins and the Sorcerer's Stone!**

The Midnight Duel

"Alice?" Bella asked her friend as they were walking to their next class. "You've always lived in a wizarding family."

"Uh huh."

"So you're never worried about how the day will work out for you?"

"Bella," Alice said hitting her hand on her head. "We've been over this. Not all wizards can see the future. It's just a gift that happens to give me a little more security."

"But you never mess up on any of your spells," she pointed out. "You and Edward always seem to know everything."

Alice sighed and stopped walking. "I know you're frustrated now because you feel like you don't know what you are doing. But you're not alone. There are tons of muggle borns here who didn't know they were wizards either. Edward and I have been around wizards our entire lives. Until two months ago you and Harry didn't even believe in magic."

"Hermione is a muggle born and she seems to understand a lot more than Harry or I."

"Well Hermione understands more about magic as a first year than most of the second years and even some of the third years." Bella sighed and Alice out a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Come on, we're going to be late. Don't want Edward and Harry to be on our backs today, do you?"

The girls started walking again and found their way into a sports field that looked like it could have been used for football. There were brooms in the center of the field and students chattering amongst themselves. Alice looked around for their brothers who had spotted them and were walking across the field. There was still one question that was pressing on Bella's brain. One thing that she was absolutely terrified of.

"Alice, what is it like to fly?"

Alice turned her head to look at her friend. "That is one question I cannot answer."

"Bella!" Bella turned around quickly in surprise only to be greeted by the smiling face of Jacob.

"Hey," she smiled back and waved him over. "Alice, this is Jacob. He was helping me out in potions class."

Alice gave him a questioning glare but her face soon brightened. "Hi, Jacob. I'm Alice. We're going to just be great friends."

Jacob gave her a rather uncomfortable but warm smile. "You can call me Jake." They looked around at each other and Jacob began to make small talk with the girls. "So are you excited for your first flying lesson?"

But before Bella had a chance to say anything, the group was joined by the rest of the boys.

"Ello, Bells," Harry came up next to his sister taking Jacob's place like a protective older brother and smiled. Bella shot him a disapproving look but let it go.

"Harry, this is Jacob. He's in Gryffindor too. Isn't that wonderful?"

"We've met."

Edward and Alice looked at each other darkly but it went unnoticed. They just continued staring at each other. Finally Alice looked away from her brother with an annoyed look in her eye.

"We have company," she stated. The group all turned to look behind her and saw several Slytherins walking towards the field. Leading the herd was, of course, Malfoy.

"Great," said Harry darkly. "I've always wanted to make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy." He sighed. Harry had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.

"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," Ron tried to reassure him. "For all we know Malfoy will be just as bad as you. That did not make him feel any better.

"I doubt that." Jacob said. "as much as I don't like Malfoy, I can't say he's a bad flyer. He's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch."

"I bet that's all talk." Alice told him. "Don't worry Harry. I'm going to look like a fool out there. I hate flying. The last time I was on a broom, I was nine. I was hoping that that would be the last time I had to ride one."

"Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot," Edward said sadly. "Did you hear him complaining about how the first years never getting on the house teams?"

"All I ever hear when he talks about flying is how many times he's escaped helicopters." Bella said. "But he's not the only one. Seamus Finnigan talks about ridding all the time. Sometimes even you do, Ron."

Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared their dormitory, about soccer. Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Harry had caught Ron prodding Dean's poster of West Ham soccer team, trying to make the players move.

Hermione was almost as nervous about flying as Bella was. This was something you couldn't learn by reading out of a book . She'd kept Alice and Bella up the night before trying to learn how to fly. At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

Bella was standing there wrapped up in her own terrible daydreams about flying. Currently, she was flying through the clouds when she was poked and thrown off her broom. She came out of her daydream, flustered and tripped, falling straight into the person who had poked her. "Oh sorry," she said looking up at to see his face..

"Oh it's alright, Bella," Neville said shyly. "You just weren't looking." He turned something over in his hand and started to put it into his pocket.

"What's that?" Bella asked him noticing the round object in his hand.

"It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "My Gran, she knows I forget things – this tells you if there's something you've forgotten. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red…oh..." His face fell, because the

Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet,

"You've forgotten something?" Bella asked him.

"Yes but I cannot remember what it is I've forgotten," he had a puzzled look on his face, trying desperately to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing the group, snatched the Remembrall out of Neville's hand.

Harry, Edward, and Ron, who had been sitting on a bench, jumped to their feet. They were half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Alice stepped in stopped them.

"Give it back, Malfoy," she told him.

"No way, shorty. This is _mine_ now."

Alice's face went blank for a minute. Bella looked at her concerned, and then suddenly, Alice seemed to come back. She looked Malfoy straight in the eye with a smug look. "Fine, you'll be the one who has to deal with it anyway and cry into your pillow."

Malfoy gave her a sneer and walked away followed by his band of goons. After they were out of earshot, Harry turned back to look at her.

"Are you crazy? We could have taken him!"

"Um, I think you should be thanking me, Harry. What I just did will make you a Hogwarts team legend and I'm not even hearing a thank you?"

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" Ron asked her.

"Alice," Edward tried to stop her but she cut him off.

"No, Edward, don't."

"Why didn't you let us fight him?" Jacob asked her.

"Alice," Neville said her name shyly and everyone turned to look at him. "How am I going to get my Remembrall back from Malfoy?"

Alice smiled at him and said "You'll see." Then she took Bella's arm and walked away.

"Alice?" Bella asked, "How do you know that Harry will become a team legend?"

"Because I saw it. I had a vision when I was talking to Malfoy. And this just starts the legends. Not that you two a really going to need them to stay famous."

They walked out farther onto the field. The boys were walking out now as well as the rest of the Slytherins. Hermione came up next to Bella and greeted both of her friends with a smile. Jacob took a spot next to her and Hermione dropped her head and blushed. There were about twenty or so broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. They had all heard Emmett and Jasper and Fred and George complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

The students glanced down at their brooms. They were old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!"'

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione's had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground. Alice and Edward's brooms were up and in their hands, as were Bella's and Jacob's. Hermione's face was the color of a tomato.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years. Alice smirked and Bella smiled.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle – three

– two –"

But Neville had pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Longbottom!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up with no control – twelve feet – twenty feet. "Get back down here this instant!" Bella saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and –

_**WHAM **_ – with a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay face down on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.

"Oh dear, it's a broken wrist," she muttered. "Come on, boy – it's all right, up you get." She turned to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! If I see a single broom in the air, you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" The other Slytherins joined in on the laughter.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Hermione.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Granger."

"Look!" said Malfoy, his hand darting into his pocket. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's Gran sent him. I took it from him before class started. The lump was too scared to fight me."

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

"Give it here, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.

Malfoy smiled nastily.

"No. I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find – how about on the roof?" Malfoy leapt onto his broomstick took off. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, "Come and get it, Potter!"

Harry grabbed his broom.

"No!" shouted Hermione. "Harry, you heard what Madam Hooch said – you'll get us all into trouble. And besides, you don't even know how to fly."

Harry ignored her. Blood was pounding in his ears. He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared.

"He's such an idiot," Hermione said as she walked towards Alice and Bella.

"No," Alice said smiling. "He's not, he's just started something."

Air rushed all around Harry and his robes whipped out behind him –and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he'd found something he could do without being taught – this was easy, this was wonderful. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and a few admiring whoops from Ron and Jacob. Bella was watching him intently and Alice stood there smiling. Harry turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair who was looking stunned.

"Give it here, Malfoy or I'll knock you off your broom!"

"Oh is that so?" asked Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.

Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom in both hands, and he shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy just barely got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steadily. Below Bella, Ron, Alice, and Jacob were clapping while Hermione still stood there with an amazed look on her face.

"No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy," Harry called. The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.

"Catch it if you can, then!" he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Harry saw the ball rise up in the air and start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down. The next thing Harry knew, he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing towards ball. The wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching. Harry stretched out his hand and caught the Remembrall only a foot from the ground. He pulled his broom straight just in time before he fell gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his hand.

Harry was swarmed by a crowed of cheering students.

"That was amazing, mate!" Ron tolled him.

"Where'd you learn to fly like that Harry?" asked Jacob. Hermione seemed to be in shock and Alice was standing there with a huge smile on her face. Bella's reaction, however, was different from everyone else's.

"What the bloody hell was that?" she asked him.

"Bella, I thought that-"

"No, clearly you didn't think!"

"Bells," Harry pleaded. "Listen to me. If I thought that I would get hurt then I-"

"HARRY POTTER!"

Harry's heart sank faster than he had just dived. Professor McGonagall was running toward them. He got to his feet, trembling.

"We'll finish talking later," Bella told him as she backed away and fell right into Jacob. She looked up at him and blushed while he helped her regain her balance.

"Never – in all my time at Hogwarts –"

Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, "- how dare you - could have broken your neck -"

"It wasn't his fault, Professor -"

"Be quiet, Miss Cullen."

"But Malfoy –" Ron tried.

"That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."

Harry caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle's triumphant faces as he left, walking numbly in Professor McGonagall's wake as she strode toward the castle. He was going to be expelled, he just knew it. He wanted to say something to defend himself, but there seemed to be something wrong with his voice. Harry looked back one last time to his Bella's face only to find it buried in Jacob's shoulder. Edward was glaring at him while Hermione looked away to towards Alice and Ron. Professor McGonagall was sweeping across the field without even looking at Harry. Now he'd done it. He hadn't even lasted two weeks. He'd be packing his bags in ten minutes. What would the Dursleys say when he turned up on the doorstep with his trunk and without Bella?

They were up to the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and Professor McGonagall still hadn't say a word to him. She opened doors and continued down corridors with Harry trailing miserably behind her. Maybe she was taking him to Dumbledore. He thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay at the castle as gamekeeper. Perhaps he could be Hagrid's assistant. His stomach twisted as he imagined it, watching Bella and the others becoming wizards, while he stumped around the grounds carrying Hagrid's bag. Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom. She opened the door and poked her head inside.

"Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?"

_Wood?_ thought Harry, bewildered. _Is Wood the name of a cane she's going to use on me?_

But instead of a cane, it was a burly fifth-year boy with light brown hair and blue eyes who came out of Flitwick's class with a rather confused face.

"Follow me, you two," said Professor McGonagall, and they marched on up the corridor once again, Wood looking curiously at Harry.

"In here."

Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard.

"Out, Peeves!" she barked. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Professor McGonagall slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two boys.

"Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood – I've found you a Seeker."

Wood's expression changed from puzzlement to delight.

"Are you serious, Professor?"

"Absolutely," said Professor McGonagall crisply. "The boy's a natural. I've never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?"

Harry nodded reluctantly. He didn't have a clue what was going on, but he didn't seem to be being expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to his legs.

"He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive without as much as a scratch" Professor McGonagall told Wood. "Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it."

Wood was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once but Harry was still confused.

"Excuse me, professor but I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?" Wood asked excitedly.

"Wood's captain of the Gryffindor house team," Professor McGonagall explained. A light bulb went off in Harry's head. _"What I just did will make you a Hogwarts team legend,"_ she had told him.

"He's just the build for a Seeker, too," continued Wood, now walking around Harry and staring at him. "Light – speedy – we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor – a _Nimbus Two Thousand_ or a _Cleansweep Seven_, I'd say."

"I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see what I can do. If we explain it to him, we may be able to bend the first-year rule. Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year. Flattened in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn't look Severus in the eye for weeks..." Professor McGonagall peered sternly over her glasses at Harry. "I want to hear you're training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you." Then she suddenly smiled. "Your father would have been so proud," she said. "He was an excellent Quidditch player himself."

"Really?" Harry asked with a stunned but happy look.

"Of course. You didn't think that was all just luck now did you?"

"You're joking."

It was dinnertime. Harry had just finished telling Ron, Edward, and Jacob what had happened when he'd left the grounds with Professor McGonagall. Ron had a piece of steak and kidney pie halfway to his mouth, but he'd forgotten all about it. Jacob was looking shocked and Edward looked thoughtful.

"Seeker?" Ron said. "But first years never make the house teams. You must be the youngest house player in about –"

"A century," said Harry, shoveling pie into his mouth. He felt particularly hungry after the excitement of the afternoon. "Wood told me."

The boys were all so amazed, so impressed. Ron just sat and gaped at Harry.

"So when do you start training?" Jacob asked him.

"Next week," said Harry. "Only don't tell anyone, Wood wants to keep it a secret."

"Are you going to tell Bella?" Ron asked.

"I don't know. Maybe, that is if Alice hasn't already."

Edward looked up from his rather rare steak to look at Harry. "What do you mean?"

"Well you heard what she told me earlier, didn't you," Harry said not sure of what to say next. Something about Edward's sudden attempted at conversation seem off. "All that stuff about how I should thank her for making a _Hogwarts legend_. How do you think she knew? I mean there's no way that she could have known that I would catch the ball and make it on the house team before I even fought with Malfoy?"

"Maybe she's a Seer," Ron said. "I mean that would explain why she spaces out so much. Maybe she's having visions."

Edward shifted uncomfortably. "I don't think so. Alice's pretty good at guessing games but that's about it."

"Well I still have to thank her. If she hadn't made us stop earlier we probably would have all had detention and I never would have gotten on the team."

"Hate to break us your little daydream here buddy," Jacob told him, "But I think you need to decide what you're going to do because the girls are coming."

Harry looked towards the door to see Bella, Alice and Hermione all chatting away and walking toward the Gryffindor table. Alice got to the table first and nudged herself right in between Harry and Edward followed by Bella who took a seat next to her brother and Hermione who happily sat right next to Jacob who was patting the spot next to him.

"Hey Eddiepoo," Alice said giving her brother a big hug.

"Don't call me that, Alice." Alice shrugged her shoulder and turned to Harry.

"Don't even think about not telling her because someone else will in about two minutes."

"Tell me what?" Bella asked him curiously. "Did you get detention? Are they sending you home? Harry you have to stay! Not that I won't survive without but you're the only good thing from home I have left! Don't leave me here!"

"Bells, relax and get a grip," Harry said taking a hold of her shoulders. "I'm not going anywhere, in fact I didn't even get detention."

"Then why did McGonagall take you like that?" she asked him bewilder. "Please tell me she didn't beat you with a cane."

"Bells," Harry said looking at his sister with a proud smile, "you are looking at the newest member of the Gryffindor Quidditch house team." Bella slapped him arm hard. "Not exactly the reaction I was expecting."

"Well you weren't going to tell me."

Fred and George Weasley now came into the hall, spotted Harry, and hurried over.

"Well done," said George in a low voice. "Wood told us. We're on the team too – Beaters."

"I tell you, we're going to win that Quidditch cup for sure this year," said Fred.

"We will, we absolutely will," Alice said smiling. The twins gave her a strange look then went back to their conversation with Harry

"We haven't won since Charlie left, but this year's team is going to be brilliant. You must be good, Harry, Wood was almost skipping when he told us."

"Anyway, we've got to go, Lee Jordan reckons he's found a new secret passageway out of the school."

"Bet it's that one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy that we found in our first week. See you."

Fred and George had hardly disappeared when someone far less welcome turned up: Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.

"Having a last meal, Potter? When are you getting the train back to the Muggles?"

"You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground and you've got your little friend back with you with you," said Hermione said coolly.

"Actually, Hermione," Ron said looking rather scarred. "They're rather big." There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.

"I wasn't talking to you, Granger," Malfoy said with sneer. His eye's floated back to Harry,

"I'd take you on anytime on my own," said Malfoy. "Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only – no contact. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel before, I suppose? That's the problem with muggles. They don't know anything."

"Of course he's heard of a wizard duel before," said Ron, wheeling around. "I'm his second, who's

yours?"

Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.

"Crabbe," he said. "Midnight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room; that's always unlocked." Malfoy began to leave when he turned back around with a rather large smirk. "And you ladies are welcome to come too," he said to Alice and Bella with a wink.

When Malfoy had gone, they all looked at each other. "What is a wizard's duel?" said Harry. "And what do you mean, you're my second?"

"Well, a second's there to take over if you die," said Ron casually, getting started at last on his cold pie. Catching the look on Harry's face, he added quickly, "But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy'll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway."

"And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?"

"Throw it away and punch him on the nose," Ron suggested.

"This is a bad idea," said Hermione speaking up for the first time all night. "You shouldn't go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of both of you."

"Hermione," said Harry annoyed – he could not understand why Alice and Bella liked this girl, "If we don't go then Ron and I back out and we look weak."

"I agree with Mione on this one," Bella said. "Not about losing points of course but think about. Malfoy has been raised a wizard. You have no idea what he could do to you, Harry. For all you know his parents started teaching him magic as soon as he could hold a wand."

"Well I know I didn't get a personal invitation from Malfoy, but I'm going," Jacob said. "I would hate to miss the action and I'm sure Bella and Alice will want to go too. That just leaves Hermione and Edward."

"I'll go," Edward said surprising everyone. He gave them all a mock hurt expression. "Just because I'm quiet doesn't mean I'm boring."

"I'm not going," Bella told them. "Clearly, Malfoy knows his way around the castle if he knows that trophy room is unlocked but we don't. I'm going to stay with Mione."

"Me too," Alice said. "It will be like a little girls' night for us. I can show you all how to do your nails and make the uniforms cute."

"I have to study," Hermione tried but Alice stopped her.

"Mione, you finished everything when we got back to the dormitories. You're not getting out of this."

"Yeah," said Bella. "If I have to suffer, so do you."

"I'll get Rose to hang too. I'm sure she'd love to meet you both."

"Okay, so it's settled," said Ron. "The four of us will all leave the tower at even thirty and you three will stay back and do whatever it is girls like to do."

Even though so may great things had happened, it wasn't what you'd call the perfect end to the day, Harry thought, as he lay awake much later listening to Dean and Seamus falling asleep (Neville wasn't back from the hospital wing). Ron, Edward, and Jacob had spent all evening giving him advice such as "If he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it, because I can't remember how to block them."

There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Malfoys sneering face kept looming up out of the darkness - this was his big chance to beat Malfoy face-to-face. He couldn't miss it.

"Half-past eleven," Ron muttered at last, "we'd better go." They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows. They had almost reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest them, "I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry."

A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione, Bella, Alice, and Rose wearing a their pajamas. Hermione had a frown on her face.

"You!" said Ron furiously. "Go to bed!"

"I almost told your brother," Hermione snapped, "Percy'd put a stop to this. Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves? I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells."

Harry couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering.

"Mione, come on, don't judge so much," Alice told her. "It will all be okay."

"Their going to be careful," Bella said.

"But you guys are going to get caught," Hermione whimpered.

"Look," Rose said speaking up. "I don't why you feel like you have to go fight this guy but the whole thing is ridiculous. If you get caught, we're going to lose points, you guys all get detention, and we deny everything which just hurts the whole house. If you don't get caught and win, then you just kick his ass twice today but you don't know what he can do. The way I see it, you either go or get caught, or you stay here and play truth or dare with us. The choice is yours."

They all looked at Rose stunned.

"Come on," Harry said to the boys and he pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.

"All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so –"

"We've got to go, we're going to be late." said Ron.

They hadn't even reached the end of the corridor when Bella ran up with Alice and caught up with them.

"We're coming with you," she said.

"You are not," Harry told her.

"Well that Fat Lady has left the portrait so there is no way for us to get back in," Alice told them.

"Wait, why is it just the two of you?" Jacob asked.

"Because Rose dared me to go watch the duel and she said I could pick a partner to dare with," Bella explained. "I wanted Hermione to come with us but she's convinced we're all going to get caught."

"You really need to go back. You could get hurt," Edward told them.

"D'you think we're just going to stand out there and wait for Filch to catch us? If he finds all six we can run back to the common room in different directions. He can't get all of us at once." Alice smiled at her own idea.

"You've got some nerve –" said Ron loudly.

"Shut up!" said Harry sharply. "I heard something."

It was a sort of snuffling.

"Mrs. Norris?" breathed Edward, squinting through the dark.

It wasn't Mrs. Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.

"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."

"Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."

"How's your arm?" said Harry.

"Fine," said Neville, showing them. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."

"Good - well, look, Neville, we've got to be somewhere, we'll see you

later –"

"Don't leave me!" said Neville, scrambling to his feet, "I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron's been past twice already."

Ron looked at his watch and then glared furiously at Alice, Bella, and Neville.

"If any of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you." Harry hissed at her to be quiet and beckoned them all forward.

They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn Harry expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Harry took out his wand in case Malfoy leapt in and started at once. The minutes crept by.

"He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Bella whispered.

Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak -and it wasn't Malfoy.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."

It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the others to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.

"They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter, "probably hiding."

"This way!" Harry mouthed to the others and they began to creep down a long hallway full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run -he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor. The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

"RUN!" Jacob yelled, and the seven of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following –they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going –they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

"I think we've lost him," Alice panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping her forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering. Bella was completely out of breath. Harry and Ron were breathing heavily. Jacob and Ron where okay.

"Mione was right," Bella gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I – told – you."

"We've got to get back into the tower, now," said Ron, "quickly as possible."

"Malfoy tricked you," Edward told Harry looking discouraged. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you – Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off." Harry thought that he was probably right.

"Let's go."

It wasn't going to be that simple. They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.

"Shut up, Peeves –please – you'll get us thrown out." Bella told him. Ron slapped his hand on his forehead and Peeves cackled.

"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please."

"Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get out of the way," snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves this was a big mistake.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door - and it was locked.

"This is it!" Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, "We're done for! This is the end!" They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves's shouts.

"Move over, now," Edward demanded. He grabbed Harry's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, 'Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and the door swung open - they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please."

"Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?"

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.

"All right -please."

"NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

"He thinks this door is locked," Alice whispered. "We'll be okay from here."

"Well now we just have to get back without Filch catching us."

"Um, Harry I think we have bigger problems than Flitch right now," Bella told him

Harry turned around and saw, quite clearly, what she had meant. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare. This was just too much. After everything else today he didn't know if he could handle anymore excitement.

They weren't in a room, as they had all supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous black dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them. They already knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. Harry groped for the doorknob - between Filch and death, he'd take Filch.

They fell backward – Jacob slammed the door shut, and they ran, practically flying down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared – all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between themselves and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.

"Where on earth have you all been?" she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces.

"Never mind that – pig snout, pig snout," panted Alice, and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs.

"So," Rose asked sitting in the armchair closest to the fire, "How'd it go?"

It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked like he may never speak again.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, it's that one."

"What on earth are you talking about?" ask Hermione who was sitting close by.

"There was a huge dog and Malfoy set us all up!" Ron yelled but they all shushed him

"You're going to wake the entire castle if you keep shouting like that," Alice told him. None of you use your eyes do you?" she said. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

"The floor?" Jacob suggested.

"I wasn't looking at its feet," said Harry. "I was a bit preoccupied with its heads."

"No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

Hermione glared at the boys quietly from the corner. "I hope you all are pleased with yourselves," she said looking mainly at Bella, Ron, and Harry. You could have all died tonight – or worse, been expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed." Ron stared after her, his mouth open.

"No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"

"We should all probably get to bed," Edward suggested. "I don't think Bella's going to last much longer." It was dark enough that he didn't see her blush.

"I agree," said Rose.

"Okay then, goodnight everyone." They all said there goodbyes and went up for bed. However no went upstairs with their mind at rest. For Alice had given them all something else to think about as they finally climbed back into their beds. The dog was guarding something... What had Hagrid said? That Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide – except perhaps Hogwarts and it looked as though they had found out where that little old package from vault seven hundred and thirteen had gone.


	10. Halloween

**A/N: Hi Everyone. Okay I know you're mad at me. This is way over do. Dancing and school work have been keeping me very busy and I have just simply not had the time to update. I have been seriously debating when I would start having the Cullens' start dropping hints that they aren't your average wizards so there's a few little surprises in the is chapter. I try to make this story as much like the real book as possible which I'm sure you have all figured out. There will be separate plots in this story so please be patient with me. I have also noticed several comments saying this is not original that were all posted between the first and second chapters. I have added several characters into the story such as the Cullens and Jacob. J.K. Rowling's original book is my outline. As always, I love reading all reviews even when they aren't very nice. I love feedback! Knowing that you guys are still reading means the world to me. Thank you so much! If you have any questions follow me on twitter nessbellalondon or write them in a review and I will be sure to answer.**

Halloween

Malfoy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Harry and Ron were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful sitting at the Gryffindor table with all of there friends, and Hermione. By the next morning Harry, Alice, Jacob, and Ron thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure, and they were quite keen to have another one. Bella and Edward were a bit more skeptic. In the meantime, Bella and Harry were filling the rest of the gang in on the package that seemed to have been moved from Gringotts to Hogwarts, and they spent a lot of time wondering what could possibly need such heavy protection.

"It's either really valuable or really dangerous," said Ron.

"Or both," said Harry. "Wanna tell us what it is, Alice?"

"Visions don't work that way, Harry. I get them when I get them. My dad says I ought to be able to see better when I'm older. I can only call the future to me in times of great need."

"Alice," Edward said.

"Oh, let it go, Eddie! The cat's out of the bag. I can see the future."

"Carlisle told you not to tell anyone."

"They're our friends, Edward!" she scolded him. The rest of the group was watching their exchanged with puzzled faces. "I know that they won't tell anyone. I saw it. However your secrets could hurt everyone if you don't come clean by second year. Especially with Bella."

Everyone stared at Edward who was looking very uncomfortable and Bella's face was as red as her hair. Alice was glaring at him heavily. Like they were having a secret conversation.

"Alice, that's private," he told her with a hurt expression.

"And you clearly don't understand the importance of honesty," she glanced at Jacob when she said this then turned back to Edward.

"I'll see you back in the common room," he told them. He got up from the table and walked away with his head down looking at his shoes.

They were all silent for a moment before Alice turned back to them with a smile on her face. "So what else do you know about this thing?"

Bella, happy for the change in conversation, answered her. "All we know for sure is that it's about two inches long and very important."

That doesn't give us much chance of guessing what it is," said Jacob looking frustrated. "We need more clues."

Neither Neville nor Hermione showed the slightest interest in what lay underneath the dog and the trapdoor. All Neville cared about was never going near the dog again.

Hermione was now refusing to speak to Harry and Ron, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus. All any of them really wanted now was a way to get back at Malfoy, and to their great delight, just such a thing arrived in the mail about a week later.

As the owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, everyone's attention was caught at once by a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls. Harry was just as interested as everyone else to see what was in this large parcel, and was amazed when the owls soared down and dropped it right in front of him, knocking his bacon to the floor. They had hardly fluttered out of the way when another owl dropped a letter on top of the parcel.

"What do you think it is?" Bella asked and Alice giggled.

Harry ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it said:

_DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE._

_It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don't want everybody knowing you've got a broomstick or they'll all want one. Oliver Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session._

_Professor McGonagall_

Harry had difficulty hiding his glee as he handed the note to Bella and Ron to read.

"A Nimbus Two Thousand!" Ron moaned enviously. "I've never even touched one."

"What's so special about a Nimbus Two Thousand?" Bella asked confused. Ron, Edward, and Jacob looked at her like she was insane and Hermione tried to look interested for Jacob. "What? We weren't all raised with a family of wizards to tell us everything." They continued to stare at her.

"Oh come on guys!" Alice said. "Give her a break."

"A Nimbus Two Thousand," Jacob explained, "is the fastest broom in the world. Probably the best racing broom in existence."

"Oh."

'Let's open it!" Ron said.

"We can't. Didn't you read the letter?"

"Then we'll open it upstairs," Harry said then he looked at Bella and Alice, "together."

They left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall they found the way upstairs barred by Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy seized the package from Harry and felt it.

"That's a broomstick," he said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on his face. "You'll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren't allowed to have them."

Ron couldn't resist. He just had to say it.

"It's not any old broomstick," he said, "it's a Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you've got at home, Malfoy, a Comet Two Sixty?" Ron grinned at Harry. "Comets look flashy, but they're not in the same league as the Nimbus."

"What would you know about it, Weasley, you couldn't afford half the handle," Malfoy snapped back. "I suppose you and your brothers have to save up twig by twig."

Before Ron could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at Malfoy's elbow.

"Not arguing, I hope?" he squeaked.

"Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor," said Malfoy quickly.

"Yes, yes, that's right," said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. "Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?"

"A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir," said Harry, fighting not to laugh at the look of horror on Malfoy's face. "And it's really thanks to Malfoy here that I've got it," he added.

"Harry's amazing!" Alice commented and Harry blushed.

"Well," said Professor Flitwick, "you best be getting upstairs. I'm sure you want to open it." He smiled at them as he walked away.

They headed upstairs, most of them smothering their laughter at Malfoy's obvious rage and confusion except for Jacob who laughed the whole way up to the common room.

"Well, it's true," Harry chortled as they reached the top of the marble staircase, "If he hadn't stolen Neville's Remembrall I wouldn't be on the team..."

"So I suppose you think that's a reward for breaking rules?" came an angry voice from just behind them. Hermione was stomping up the stairs, looking disapprovingly at the package in Harry's hand.

"I thought you weren't speaking to us?" said Harry.

"Yes, don't stop now," said Ron, "it's doing us so much good."

Hermione marched away with her nose in the air.

Harry had a lot of trouble keeping his mind on his lessons that day. It kept wandering up to the dormitory where his new broomstick was lying under his bed, or straying off to the Quidditch field where he'd be learning to play that night. He bolted his dinner that evening without noticing what he was eating, and then rushed upstairs with Ron to unwrap the Nimbus Two Thousand at last.

"Wow," Ron sighed, as the broomstick rolled onto Harry's bedspread.

Even Harry, who knew nothing about the different brooms, thought it looked wonderful. Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and Nimbus Two Thousand written in gold near the top.

It was almost seven o'clock when Harry left the castle and set off in the dusk toward the Quidditch field. He'd never been inside the stadium before. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the field were three golden poles with hoops on the end.

Harry, eager to fly again, mounted his broomstick and kicked off from the ground. It felt amazing just to be out on the field alone. He felt free and relax but the height of the broom gave him such a rush. Harry swooshed in and out of the goal posts and whooshed his way down the field. The broom turned wherever he wanted it to go with almost no effort.

The wind was rushing threw his hair and all over his face but his feeling of calm was suddenly interrupted by a voice. "Hey, Potter, want to come down from there so I can teach you how to play soon?"

Oliver Wood had arrived. He was carrying a large wooden crate under his arm. Harry reluctantly pulled the broom downward with the slightest tough of his fingertips and landed next to Wood.

"Very nice," said Wood, his eyes glinting. "I see what McGonagall meant... you really are a natural. I'm just going to teach you the rules of the game tonight, then you'll start with the team. We practice three times a week. Make sure you're always there on time."

He opened the crate. Inside were four different-sized balls.

"Right," said Wood. "Now, Quidditch is easy enough to understand. There are seven players on each side. Three of them are called Chasers." Wood took out a bright red ball about the size of a soccer ball. "This ball's called the Quaffle," said Wood. "The Chasers throw the Quaffle to each other and try and get it through one of the hoops to score a goal. Ten points every time the Quaffle goes through one of the hoops. Follow me?" Harry gave him a nod. "Good," Wood continued.

"Now, there's another player on each side who's called the Keeper -I'm Keeper for Gryffindor. I have to fly around our hoops and stop the other team from scoring."

Harry quite was determined to remember it all and was silently wishing Bella was here. She would be taking notes and make sure she understood everything. Was he supposed to bring parchment?

"And they play with the Quaffle. Okay, got that. So what are they for?" He pointed at the three balls left inside the box.

"No idea. Sorry."

"It's alright. Here, I'll show you now," said Wood. "Take this."

He handed Harry a small club, a bit like a short baseball bat. "What do I need this for?"

"I'm going to show you what Bludgers do," Wood said. "These two are the Bludgers."

He pointed at two jet black identical balls, slightly smaller than the red on, Quaffle, Harry remembered. Harry noticed that these balls seemed to be straining to escape the straps holding them inside the box almost as if the were alive.

"Stand back," Wood warned Harry. He bent down and freed one of the Bludgers.

The ball rose high in the air and then went straight for Harry's face. Harry swung at it with the club to keep it from breaking his glasses, and it went soaring away into the air. The Bludger seemed unhappy by this and went for Wood next who dived on top of it and managed to pin it to the ground.

"See?" Wood panted, forcing the Bludger back into the box and strapping it down safely. "The Bludgers try to knock players off their brooms. That's why each team has two Beaters. The Weasley twins are ours. It's their job to protect our side from the Bludgers and try and knock them toward the other team."

"Three Chasers try and score with the Quaffle; the Keeper guards the goal posts; the Beaters keep the Bludgers away from their team," Harry reeled off.

"Good, I think you've got it."

"Um just one question, have the Bludgers ever killed anyone before?" Harry asked.

"Never at Hogwarts. We've had a couple of broken jaws but nothing worse than that. Now, the last member of the team is the Seeker. That's you. And you don't have to worry about the Quaffle or the Bludgers unless they crack my head open. Don't worry, the Weasleys are more than a match for the Bludgers. I mean, they're like a pair of human Bludgers themselves."

Wood reached into the crate and took out the fourth and last ball. Compared with the Quaffle and the Bludgers, it was tiny, about the size of a large walnut. It was bright gold and had little fluttering silver wings.

"This," said Wood, "is the Golden Snitch, and it's the most important ball of the lot."

"I like this ball," said Harry smiling.

"Ah you like it now. But in the game it's wicked fast and down right impossible to see. It's the Seeker's job to catch it before the other team's Seeker, because whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins his team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win. That's why Seekers get fouled so much. A game of Quidditch only ends when the Snitch is caught, so it can go on for ages. Catch this ball, Potter and we win."

Harry understood what he had to do all right, it was doing it that was going to be the problem.

"We won't practice with the Snitch yet," said Wood, carefully shutting it back inside the crate, "it's too dark, we might lose it. Let's try you out with a few of these."

He pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of his pocket and a few minutes later, he and Harry were up in the air, Wood throwing the golf balls as hard and as fast as he could in every direction for Harry to catch.

Harry didn't miss a single one, and Wood was delighted. After half an hour, night had really fallen and they couldn't carry on.

"That Quidditch cup'll have the Gryffindor name on it this year," said Wood happily as they trudged back up to the castle. "I wouldn't be surprised if you turn out better than Charlie Weasley, and he could have played for England if he hadn't gone off chasing dragons."

Perhaps it was because he was now so busy, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week on top of all his homework, but Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he'd already been at Hogwarts two months. His lessons were becoming more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics. He had plenty of friends with the Cullens, his sister, Ron, and now his new teammates. Hogwarts was starting to feel like home. He belonged here, he thought as he walked through the portrait.

He began to walk threw the common room and around the large sofa when he tripped over a pair of black shoes. "Ouch!"

"Who's there?" Harry asked. He could see the outline of a person now, huddled up behind the couch. The figure shifted and turned on a lamp next to the sofa.

"Hello Harry," Edward smiled slightly.

"What are you doing up so late? You can't be doing home work," Harry gesture to the pile of papers in front of him.

"No, I'm afraid not." Harry sat down and made himself comfortable. Edward seemed nice most of the time but Harry didn't know him that well. Maybe this would give him a better chance.

"What's wrong?" When Edward didn't answer Harry looked at one of the papers. There words, words he didn't fully understand, romantic words, sad word but one word the repeated though out the papers caught his eye. _Bella._ Harry looked up at Edward in surprise. Edward, who was looking down at his hands, sighed.

"You know you can trust me don't you?" Harry asked him. There was long pause before Edward looked up.

"If I tell you something, you have to promise me you will not let anyone else know." Harry nodded and Edward continued. "I'm not evil Harry. I don't practice dark magic. I'm only a first year."

"I know you're not evil," Harry told him. "You're Alice's brother, you couldn't be evil."

"Alice isn't my sister, Harry. I'm an only child."

"But on the train, you kept talking about your siblings on the train and she calls you her brother all the time."

"Well that's Alice. I live with my uncle, Carlisle. He's a healer. Alice's real brother is Emmett. My parents died back in the first war just like yours. It was the death eaters. They came for them one night when I was staying with my Carlisle and Esme. They wanted information on Dumbledore. They thought he had an army. My parents were part of the rebellion. They refused to give up there friends and they paid the price. My parents were supposed to come pick me up that night but they never showed and I never saw them again. And Carlisle and Esme, they knew what happened so they kept me. They brought me up ever and I've live there since."

"So Alice and Emmett are really your cousins?"

"Yes."

"I still don't see what that has to do with you being evil."

"As I'm sure you've figured out by now, seeing as my sister has no filter on her mouth, she can see the future. She gets visions but she cannot control when she gets them. That's why she knew what was going to happen that day on Quidditch field. We're special."

"Can you see the future too?"

"No but I know what you're thinking," Harry was suddenly very confused. "I can hear everyone in this school all the time, I can tell you what Ron is dream about right now. I could tell you all of Hermione Ganger's test answers as she writes them down. I know that right now you believe that I am going mad but you still want to help me."

"How?"

"I told you, Harry, Alice and I are special."

"Is there anything else I should know about you?"

"Alice tells me you'll figure it out with time. But until then don't go looking for answers. There is no logic, no book out there that will help you."

"Just one more thing, Edward. Why is my sister's name written all over your papers?"

"Because, out of all of the students and the teachers in this school, she is the only one I cannot read. It puzzles me and yet it is rather intriguing as well. And just to be safe you may want to keep her away from Malfoy."

"Thanks," Harry said as he started to stand up and leave but something stopped him. "I know what it's like you know, to grow up without parents or feel like you don't have a family. My aunt and uncle were awful to Bella and me. If felt like we didn't have anyone."

"But you had Bella, you did have someone that was truly family."

"We should probably get some rest. Everyone is going to be loud tomorrow."

"Well it is Halloween," Edward smiled getting up. The two boys walked up the stairs together with a new bond and a new secret. But all too soon reality started to sink in for Harry. Secrets that he couldn't tell Bella, learning about his friends over time, gifts that normal wizards did not posses. Where they even really wizards at all?

On Halloween morning the castle woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make Neville's toad zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan (which was a relief, because Neville had been trying to catch his eye). Ron, however, was to be working with Hermione Granger. Edward was partnered with Alice. Bella had been paired up with Jacob (which Edward did not look to happy about.)

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too – never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

It was very difficult. Harry and Seamus swished and flicked, but the feather they were supposed to be sending skyward just lay on the desktop. Ron, at the next table, wasn't having much more luck. Bella was making hers go about a millimeter off the desk and having it come down after about fifteen seconds. Alice and Edward were, of course, doing very well but trying hard not to show off.

Harry felt bad for Ron. It seemed that Hermione was now correcting his grammer.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

"You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, not Levi-o-sah."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

"Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "See here evereyone, Miss Granger's done it!"

The class clapped for her and Ron gave a disgruntled sigh. "I can do it," said Seamus. He prodded it with his wand, spoke the spell, and set fire to their feather which Harry had to put it out with his hat.

"Hey," Jacob said pulling Bella's attention away from the commotion. "Some of the older kids in Gryffindor are gonna set up a Halloween party tonight after dinner. Are you in?"

"Can I bring Alice?" Bella asked him.

"Of course, she seems like fun. You can bring Harry too," he smiled but then his face became serious. "Just don't come with her brother." Jacob said looking across the room to where Edward was sitting. Bella turned around and looked back him to find him staring at her. He looked away abruptly when he noticed her.

"Why would I bring Edward?" Bella asked confused.

"Because he likes you."

"Edward? No. He doesn't like me. Alice would have told me."

"Okay so it's on?"

"Sure." And that was the end of the conversation.

Ron was in a very bad mood by the end of the class. "It's no wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry as they pushed their way into the crowded corridor, "she's a nightmare, honestly. "

Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face and was startled to see that she was in tears.

"I think she heard you."

"So?" said Ron, but he looked a bit uncomfortable. "She must've noticed she's got no friends."

"Ron, I'm her friend." Bella said.

"Me too," Alice agreed. "I mean I think she's a little ignorant about the future and her wardrobe could definitely use some work but she's still my friend."

"Oh come one," said Ron. "You can't tell me she doesn't annoy you. She's like the biggest know-it-all to ever walk the planet, next to Percy of course."

"You better apologize to her, Ron. That was really mean," Alice told him.

"Fine, next class I'll tell her how sorry I am and she has wonderful friends."

"Good, but you might want to cut out the sarcasm," Bella told him seriously.

But Hermione never showed up for the next class and wasn't seen all afternoon. On their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, Harry and Ron overheard Parvati Patil telling Alice that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone. Bella glared at Ron who was looking incredibly awkward at this, but a moment later they had entered the Great Hall, where the Halloween decorations put Hermione out of their minds.

A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.

"Guys!" They heard as they walked in. "Guys over here!"

They looked across the great hall to see Jacob with his legs out as far a as they would go across the seats and waving franticly with a large grin on his face. "Whoa!" he fell off the seats and onto the floor. He got up immediately, slightly blushing.

"Hey." Bella smiled as she sat down next in one of the places Jacob's legs had been.

"I saved you all seats," he said as he took a spot next to Bella and winked.

"How sweet of you'" said Alice as she slid into the open spot next to her friend. Harry, Ron, and Edward went to the other side of the table and sat down across from them.

"So Bella did you invite everyone yet?"

"Invite us to what?" asked Ron.

"The party."

Alice immediately turned to look at Bella. "We all got invited to a party and you didn't tell us?"

"Well, I wouldn't say we were all invited to a party…" she answered slowly.

"What are you talking about?" asked Jacob. "Of course they are." Bella looked at him specially but his expression was clear. _We'll talk later._

"Who's party is it?" Harry asked.

"It's just a bunch of people from our house throwing it in the common room. It's supposed to be forth years and up but my cousin said I could come and bring a few people."

"You have a cousin?" Ron asked surprised.

"Yeah. Her name is Leah. She's in forth year. Her brother's coming next year too."

"Cool. Emmett and Rose are going to be so mad when they here that we went to an upper years' party without them," Alice said excitedly.

"Alice," Edward started.

"Don't start Edward. Come to the party with us or don't. I don't care but Bella and I are going and we're going to have fun." Alice turned to face Jacob next. "When's the party start?" she smiled.

"Right after the feast," he smiled and gave Bella a wink. They were all quiet for a moment before Jacob picked up the conversation again.

"So how's everyone's happy Halloween been?" Jacob asked. Then he looked around. "Where's Hermione?"

Bella frowned but the only one who seemed to notice was Edward.

"Ask _him_," said Alice gesturing to Ron.

"Oh come on, Alice! How long are you going to be mad at me? I think I had a right to be upset with her, don't you?"

"Doing something correctly in class isn't something to insult you, Ron."

"It wasn't because she did it right. It was because she made me look like an idiot."

"Well that doesn't take much."

"Alice, cut him a break," Harry said.

"Not until he apologizes to her."

"How can I apologize when I don't know where she is?"

They continued on like that for several minutes with Harry and Edward occasionally attempting to stop Alice from going on any longer.

"Am I missing something?" Jacob whispered to Bella.

"Oh, Hermione made Ron feel like an idiot in Charms because he got cocky and then he said she had no friends but she heard him and ran off. Nobody knows where she is."

"Oh my gosh. So that's why Alice is so worked up?"

"Yep." She said popping the "P."

"And what about you?" he asked her. "You're her friend too. Why aren't you screaming at him like she is?"

"Mostly because I know that Hermione is smart and knows that we are her friends and Ron's just mad because she's clearly smarter and knew what she was doing. Everyone's over reacting."

"Well then props to you for being so calm." Bella's face began to turn red and she tucked her hair behind her ear.

The two looked back up at the argument in front of them.

"I did!" Ron stated forcefully.

"No clearly you did not!" Alice yelled back. She opened her mouth to say something else but then stopped. Her face went completely blank and Edward froze. Ron stopped to look at her and Jacob put down his goblet of pumpkin juice. Bella completely stopped breathing. She had only ever seen Alice willingly go into a premonition. She put her hands on Alice's shoulder and waited. Harry's eyes kept going back and forth between Alice and Edward.

"Alice?" Bella whispered. She didn't answer her.

"Alice." Again she got no reply.

"Alice!" she said this time quite forcefully.

Alice twitched and looked up at everyone. "We need to leave. Now."

At that very same moment, the doors to the Great Hall swung open as Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll –in the dungeons – thought you ought to know."

Then he fell to the floor unconscious.

There was an uproar as the students and even some of the teachers began to panic. Several students ran out of the hall. Other's tried to hide under their tables. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

Percy was in his element.

"Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!"

"How could a troll get in?" Harry asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid," said Ron.

"Maybe Peeves let it in for a Halloween joke," Bella suggested.

"No, he wouldn't get it past Flitch," said Edward.

They passed different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused Hufflepuffs, Alice suddenly grabbed Ron's arm.

"I've just thought – Hermione."

"What about her?"

"She doesn't know about the troll."

"We have to go and get her Ron." Harry told him.

Ron bit his lip.

"Oh, all right," he snapped. "But Percy'd better not see us."

"What about the rest of us?" Bella asked them.

"You, Edward, and Jacob go with Percy back to the common room," Harry instructed.

"Oh joy," Jacob muttered.

"We're going to bring back Hermione."

"Be careful." Bella said before giving Harry a hug and running off with the two boys.

Ducking down, Ron, Alice and Harry joined the Hufflepuffs going the other way, slipped down a deserted side corridor, and hurried off toward the girls' bathroom. They had just turned the corner when they heard quick footsteps behind them.

"Percy!" hissed Ron, pulling Harry and Alice behind a large stone griffin.

Peering around it, however, they saw not Percy but Snape. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.

"What's he doing?" Alice whispered. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"

"I don't know." Ron answered.

"Come one, we better keep moving."

Quietly as possible, they crept along the next corridor after Snape's fading footsteps.

"He's heading for the third floor," Harry said, but Ron held up his hand.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"Can you smell something?"

Harry sniffed and a foul stench reached his nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean. Alice was holding her nose tight.

Then they heard it. The low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Ron pointed – at the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. They shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.

It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.

The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room.

"The keys in the lock," Harry muttered. "We could lock it in."

"Good idea," said Ron nervously.

"Are you sure about that?" Alice asked.

"Alice, it's the best chance we've got," Harry told her.

They edged toward the open door, mouths dry, praying the troll wasn't about to come out of it. With one great leap, Harry managed to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it.

"Yes!"

"That was great, Harry! Now we have a good story to tell at the party!" Ron beamed.

"I'm not so sure about that," said Alice.

Then they heard something that made their hearts stop – a high, petrified scream – and it was coming from the chamber they'd just chained up.

"Oh, no," said Ron, pale as the Bloody Baron.

"What did you do?" Alice yelled.

"It's the girls' bathroom!" Harry gasped.

"Hermione!" they said together.

It was the last thing they wanted to do, but what choice did they have? Wheeling around, they sprinted back to the door and turned the key, fumbling in their panic. Harry pulled the door open and they ran inside.

"Where the bloody hell are they?" Bella paced around the common room.

Jacob sat relaxing on the couch by the fire with his arm up and his legs crossed. Edward was sitting in the corner chair and appeared to be focusing intently on something that wasn't really there. Fourth and fifth years were busy running around, putting up streamers and setting up tables.

"Ugh!" Bella stomped her foot. "Am I the only one that's worried about them?"

"Alice can take care of herself, Bella and clearly, so can Harry," Edward told her.

"Are you insane? We're all first years! We've only been here for two months and you think that they can survive a troll? What is that?"

"That's faith in my sister and frankly you should have a little more in Harry," Edward told her seriously.

Bella stood there completely speechless.

"Come on, Bells." Jacob said in his relaxed voice and patted the seat next to him. "Sit down, relax. I'm sure that they're going to be just fine. Have yourself a glass of pumpkin juice."

"No," Bella said forcefully.

"Why not?" Jacob asked looking confused.

"I will not sit here and wait and relax with you two like everything is okay. My only brother and my best friend are out there wondering around in the castle with a troll on the loose trying to find Hermione. How can you two just sit here and do nothing? Edward, Alice is your sister, your only sister! Don't tell me that you're okay with just waiting for her to come back completely unharmed when you don't even know if she's alive."

"I'm not worried because I know that she is okay."

"How can you know that? Can you read her mind? Can you hear her?"

"I…" Edward started to say but then he stopped. Bella raised an eyebrow at him to continue. "I just know."

"Humph," she scoffed and went back to pacing.

"Mental, that one, I'm telling you," Jacob said solemnly before taking a swig of pumpkin juice.

Hermione Granger was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll was advancing on her, knocking the sinks off the walls as it went.

"Confuse it!" Alice said desperately to Ron and Harry. Seizing a tap, Ron threw it as hard as he could against the wall.

The troll stopped a few feet from Hermione. It lumbered around, blinking stupidly, to see what had made the noise. Its mean little eyes saw Harry. It hesitated, then made for him instead, lifting its club as it went.

"Oy, pea-brain!" yelled Ron from the other side of the chamber, and he threw a metal pipe at it. The troll didn't even seem to notice the pipe hitting its shoulder, but it heard the yell and paused again, turning its ugly snout toward Ron instead, giving Harry time to run around it.

"Come on, run, run!" Alice yelled at Hermione, trying to pull her toward the door, but she couldn't move, she was still flat against the wall, her mouth open with terror.

The shouting and the echoes seemed to be driving the troll berserk. It roared again and started toward Ron, who was nearest and had no way to escape.

Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: He took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll's neck from behind. The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wand had still been in his hand when he'd jumped – it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.

Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club, with Harry clinging on for dear life; any second, the troll was going to rip him off or catch him a terrible blow with the club.

"Hold on, Harry!" Alice yelled. Then she turned to Ron. "You have to do something!"

"Me? What am I supposed to do? What about Hermione?"

Hermione had sunk to the floor in fright and was hiding under the sink closest to the door.

"Oh, alright!" Ron pulled out his own wand – not knowing what he was going to do he heard himself cry the first spell that came into his head: "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The club flew suddenly out of the troll's hand, rose high, high up into the air, turned slowly over – and dropped, with a sickening crack, onto its owner's head. The troll swayed on the spot and then fell flat on its face, with a thud that made the whole room

Harry got to his feet. He was shaking and out of breath. Ron was standing there with his wand still raised, staring at what he had done. Alice raced to Harry's side to hug him and Hermione slowly crawled out from her spot under the sink.

"Is it - dead?" It was Hermione who spoke first.

"I don't think so," said Harry, "I think it's just been knocked out."

"Are you alright?" Alice asked him.

"I will be," Harry answered. He bent down and pulled his wand out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue. "Urgh – troll boogers."

He wiped it on the troll's trousers.

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the four of them look up. They hadn't realized what a racket they had been making, but of course, someone downstairs must have heard the crashes and the troll's roars. A moment later, Professor McGonagall had come bursting into the room, closely followed by Snape, with Quirrell bringing up the rear. Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart.

Snape bent over the troll. Professor McGonagall was looking at Alice, Ron, and Harry. They had never seen her look so angry. Her lips were white and any hopes of winning fifty points for Gryffindor faded quickly from Harry's mind.

"What on earth were you thinking?" said Professor McGonagall, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked at Ron, who was still standing with his wand in the air. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look. Harry looked at the floor. He wished Ron would put his wand down.

Then a small voice came out of the shadows.

"Please, Professor – they were looking for me."

"Miss Granger!"

"I went looking for the troll because I – I thought I could deal with it on my own – you know, because I've read all about them."

Ron dropped his wand. Hermione Granger, telling a downright lie to a teacher? "If they hadn't found me, I'd probably be dead now. Harry stuck his wand up its nose, Ron knocked it out with its own club. Alice showed them where I was and made sure I didn't get hurt. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."

Alice, Harry, and Ron tried to look as though this story wasn't new to them.

"Well – in that case..." said Professor McGonagall, staring at the four of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own? You are only a first year."

Hermione hung her head. They were all speechless. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets.

"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this," said Professor McGonagall. "I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."

Hermione left.

Professor McGonagall turned to the remaining three.

"Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll and lived to tell the tail. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."

They hurried out of the chamber and didn't speak at all until they had climbed two floors up. It was a relief to be away from the smell of the troll, quite apart from anything else.

"We should have gotten more than ten points," Ron grumbled.

"Five, you mean, once she's taken off Hermione's."

"Good of her to get us out of trouble like that," Ron admitted. "Mind you, we did save her."

"She might not have needed saving if we hadn't locked the thing in with her," Harry reminded him.

"She wouldn't have needed saving if Ron had just held his tongue," Alice spat.

They had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Pig snout," they said and entered.

The food had been sent up. Students from all years were in the common room; laughing, talking, eating, and drinking. Hermione, however, stood alone by the door, waiting for them. There was a very embarrassed pause. Then, none of them looking at each other, they all said

"Thanks," and hurried off to get plates.

"Wait, Hermione," Ron said hurrying after her.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she smiled slightly. "Honestly I probably deserved it. Thank you for saving me."

Ron blushed awkwardly. "No problem. Um, I should probably um go find Harry. Bella's going to kill him and someone should be there to hold her back."

"Yeah, um okay. Bye."

"Bye."

And that was that. But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

**A/N: I am very very incredibly ridiculously sorry for this taking so long, I could give you all of my reasons for not updating sooner and I'm sure some of you started to give up on this story. Please don't! I really do try my best to keep going but sometimes I just can't. I have had a serious case of writers block for quite sometime now but I woke up this week and I just knew what to do again. Thank you for all of your support and patience with me and this story. I hope you find that this chapter was worth it. As always please review and add me to all of your favorites and alerts. I do read and appreciate all of my reviews and private messages. It means so much to me that so many of you enjoy reading what I have done with J.K Rowling's work. Thank you everyone who has stayed with me and I will do my best to update more frequently. I am not giving up on this story any time soon.**


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